
Class Zl:} <A^%\ 
Book___i_C. 1 % 



GopyriglitlJi 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




NEUSCHWANSTEIN 



Rambles Abroad 

BY 

OLIVE A. COLTON 



ILLUSTRATED 




toledo, ohio 
The Franklin Printing & Engraving Co. 

publishers 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 17 13U4 

CLASS iju XXc Not 
COPY B. 



Copyright 1904, by 
The Franklin Printing & Engraving Co. 



December 



To 

Mary Barnes Secor 

whose helpful interest in what little I have seen 

encouraged me to tell of my 

rambles abroad. 



CONTENTS 

A Glimpse; of Naples . . . . .3 

Amalfi . . . . . . .17 

A Glimpse of Rome . . . . .29 

Another Glimpse of Rome .... 47 

Noted Exiles at Rest in Rome . . .61 

Pope Pius X ...... 75 

A Glimpse of Milan . . . . .83 

A Glimpse of Vienna .... 93 

schonbrunn ...... 107 

Budapest ...... 119 

A Glimpse of Munich ..... 129 

Art in Munich ..... 143 

The Castles of the Mad King of Bavaria . . 153 

nurnberg ...... 169 

A Glimpse of the Wartburg .... 183 

Weimar . . . . . . . 191 

Babelsburg ...... 207 

Some Attractions of Paris . . . 217 

Some More Attractions of Paris . . . 235 

The Elysee Palace ..... 249 

The Castles of Francois I. . . . . 259 

A Glimpse of Windsor Castle . . . 281 



Rambles 
Abroad 



A GLIMPSE OF NAPLES 



A Glimpse of Naples 

A CLOUDLESS blue sky, beautiful bay, distant moun- 
tains and a town with warm sunshine and flowers 
nestling down on an arm of land that curves caress- 
ingly around the water, make one think on approaching of the 
beauty and peace of heaven. Then on landing, one finds the 
confusion and shrieks of hell. That is Naples. 

Nothing could be more picturesque than the arrival of a 
ship in the bay. Instantly all the town comes out in small 
boats and surrounds it with a floating population, representing 
the arts and crafts, music and flowers of the place. The sound 
of guitars and mandolins playing "La Bella Napoli" and 
"St. Lucia" is enriched by voices among which one fancies 
future opera singers. 

Suddenly two of the musicians in a moment of abandon 
rise, clasp each other round the waist and begin to dance round 
and round on about two square inches of their flat-bottom boat, 
regardless of its threatening swaying, until a man in a little 
fruit and vegetable boat collides with them, and then— there's 
no longer music. The shrieks, yells and curses would astonish 
even a Billingsgate fishwife, until, spying a customer, a flower- 
vender, playing the unintentional part of peacemaker, forces 
his little boat between the two, and by means of a long pole 
hands up to the deck bunches of roses and violets. By this 
time an old hag, doubtless a contemporary of Methuselah, 
appears and catches centimes dexteriously in an inverted um- 
brella to the delight of the passengers, as well as herself. 

Tiny tortoise-shell guitars are offered at three dollars 
apiece, but finding no ready buyers, drop rapidly to fifty cents 

[3] 



4 RAMBLES ABROAD 

for three. Presently the boat of an itinerant cook floats by 
with a small stove in the middle and fish and meat piled on one 
side, waiting for the cook's praise of them to tempt some un- 
suspicious appetite. Among this heterogeneous crowd, a Sister 
of Charity appears, having been rowed out to join the scramble 
for pennies. She holds up imploringly a little bank and calls 
upon several saints to preserve those who still have a centesimi 
left to give her. 

"Any color so long as it is bright, any sound so long as 
it is noise," pleases Naples. The narrow streets seethe with 
humanity, not merely going or coming like the traffic in other 
cities, but there appear to be eddies and whirlpools of people 
going round and round quite without purpose. The Toledo is 
the center of commercial activity. It was named for the Vice- 
roy Don Pedro de Toledo, but is now called the Via Roma, and 
the traffic there is so condensed it is almost impossible at times 
to get through the street. Thirty or forty hand-organs come 
by in a day, the antics of tiny trained dogs whipped by three 
robust men are the delight of the loungers, bag-pipes add to 
the program and little troops of fandango dancers in native 
dress from the mountains always do a good business. One 
progressive band of minstrels, on seeing Americans, immedi- 
ately sings "John Brown's Body" and "Shoo Fly, Don't 
Bother Me," in broken Jinglish with a pride that makes their 
envious friends think they have learned the very latest Ameri- 
can songs. 

The Opera House of San Carlo seats twenty-six hundred 
people; many of Rossini's, Donizetti's and other great Italian 
composers' operas have had their first night here, and it is one 
of the sightsof Europe. The Museum of Naples ranks as one 
of the finest in the world. Among its treasures are the cele- 
brated Farnese Bull, and other great statues, Pompeian antiq- 
uities, ancient glass, jewelry, a wonderful collection of coins, 



A GLIMPSE OF NAPLES 



frescoes, priceless bronzes, and many valuable old paintings. 
Prinee Filangieri, who died in 1892, gave his palace and collec- 
tion of works of art to the city also, and while not so large as 
the usual museum, it contains such choice pieces that it is one 
of the best collections ever gathered together. 

High on the top of a hill that towers above Naples stands 
the old suppressed monastery of San Martino, a wonderfully 
interesting relic of 
the past, with its 
old laboratory, 
cloisters , etc. 
Many of Naples 
oldest pictures are 
exhibited here as 
well as the great 
coach in which 
Victor Emmanuel 
and Garibaldi rode 
in triumph into 
Naples in 1869, 
after their com- 
bined efforts had 
taken the city. 
Just beyond is St. 
Elmo with its defi- 
ant walls and huge 
fosses that was 
considered an impregnable fortress by Robert the Wise in 
1300, while even now as a military prison it still frowns 
gloomily upon the town lying suppliantly at its feet. One 
should take the cable car up this steep old hill, not only to 
see these buildings, but to get the admirable view which 
includes Capri, Vesuvius, Ischia and miles beyond. 




INTERIOR OF CHURCH OF ST. MARTINO 



6 RAMBLES ABROAD 

The poor of Naples are the poorest poor in the world. 
Even when the horrible condition of the London tenements 
was exposed some years ago, the records proved they were 
palatial compared to Naples. Dozens of both sexes are 
huddled with decaying fruits and vegetables in dark, damp 
rooms, absolutely devoid of air or light, and the filth, vice and 
degradation are too horrible to describe. Children do not even 
know they are expected to have a mother, let alone a father, 
and one sees along the streets little ragged hoodlums with 
nothing but the sun to smile down on them, but they act as 
unconscious reflectors and smile back perfectly content. It is 
nothing to them to have no home, they sleep on steps or 
wherever they happen to feel weary, and live happily off choice 
bits of refuse found in the streets. 

It is quite wrong to think of all Italy eating macaroni. 
There are thousands in Naples too destitute even to buy that, 
and it remains a kind of ambrosia to them, only to be procured 
once or twice a month. In 1884, when the cholera reaped such 
a harvest here. King Humbert visited the frightful tenement 
district himself, gave orders to have such death-traps torn down 
at once, and replaced by better buildings. The King was uni- 
versally praised for his courage in thus defying contagion and 
going to see for himself the condition of his people. Many pic- 
tures represent scenes from his visit, one especially impressive 
where the dead are being brought out in great numbers, and 
this noble King, standing among these half-starved degraded 
creatures, is removing his hat to do homage to the victims. 

The Galleria Umberto is a magnificent arcade lined with 
some of the most attractive shops in Naples, and the shell and 
corals in Errico's window beckon one into the interior for a 
closer survey. Much of this exquisite shell and cameo carving 
is done in dens so loathsome that our sweat-shops would be 
ideal work-rooms for these men. 



A GLIMPSE OF NAPLES 7 

As shelter for the lower classes is so uninviting they live 
out doors. They go out in the sun, as the saying is, "to warm 
themselves by King Rene's fireside," for he was one of their 
kings, who, not able to afford heat for the whole palace, used 
to go to the sun for warmth. The virtues of Pear's soap are 
unknown among them, but they comb their hair and arrange 
their toilet in full sight of all the world. No matter how 
ragged a Neapolitan woman may be, her hair is as carefully 
arranged as for a court ball. Washwomen and ironers work 
out on the pavements and dry the clothes on a line strung 
along the outside of the buildings, rubbed against, of course, 
by all passers, and the cows and goats which are driven 
through the streets and milked at one's door, add to the gen- 
eral confusion, but thus do away with any need of examination 
of the milk for adulteration. 

Business is transacted in the doorways, and by working, 
or what they call working, out doors, one can always be pres- 
ent at the various diversions which occur. Doesn't this side- 
walk housework interfere with the passers down these narrow 
streets? Certainly, but what of it? No one by any chance 
hurries, and if occasionally a passer curses them it adds im- 
mensely to the day's enjoyment, for immediately an audience 
gathers. Now there is no place in the world where one can so 
readily find spectators as in Naples. The idlers stand, day by 
day, just waiting for something to watch. Here it is; they take 
sides, half join the cursing party, the rest supporting the 
defense, and words fly back and forth like ping-pong balls, 
that make the air as blue as the sky. Even when in friendly 
conversation strangers often mistake their little chats for the 
beginning of a riot, so that when real anger quickens their 
tongues the effect is most extraordinary. 

Along the bay a pleasure ground has been laid out called 
the Villa Nationale; among the trees little temples to Tasso 



8 RAMBLES ABROAD 

and Virgil have been erected, and it makes an ideal park for 
both rich and poor. The Aquarium is close by, the most com- 
plete in the world, and more varieties of fish are on exhibition 
than in any other place. Protruding out into the bay one sees 
the half-ruined Castello del Ovo, named from its oval shape, 
now a military prison. It was at one time the home of 
Lucullus, and there Brutus met Cicero just after he had mur- 
dered Julius Caesar. The waves dash against it in vain, and it 
is a very picturesque addition to the coast. 

The beggars are legion. An old man will display with 
utmost pride his loathesome deformities, looking meantime 
with scorn upon the poor wretch pestering you on the other 
side who can boast nothing more dreadful than two wooden 
legs and shriveled arm as his source of revenue. 

In sharp contrast to the very poor are the very rich, and 
in the late afternoons one sees on the Corso perfectly appointed 
turnouts with elegantly dressed men and women winding their 
way to the villas which extend all the way up the hills. The 
view from them is so lovely that with their well-ladened orange 
and olive trees, climbing roses, palms, cactus, violets and 
camelias, they appear to be miniature Edens. The horses are 
driven like mad, but not even the finest carriages have rubber 
tires, while in the street-cabs one bounces around like corn in 
a popper. A decided improvement is noticeable in the horses. 
All those badly-beaten, bony animals that appealed to all 
travelers' sympathies a few years ago are evidently now dead 
and gone, and have been replaced with plump little horses that 
go miles and miles without fatigue. Many drive out to the 
suburb of Posilipo, where Virgil is buried in an unpretentious 
tomb, bearing this inscription: 

"In lovely Mantua was my childhood's home, 
Till my ambition lured me forth to Rome. 
Flocks, fields and heroes have inspired my breast, 
And now on Naple's sunny slope I rest," 



A GLIMPSE OF NAPLES 11 

The city was originally settled by the Greeks and called 
by them the new city — Neapolis. Its history is nothing but a 
record of oppression. It formed, with the island of Sicily, the 
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies until it was united with the rest 
of Italy by Victor Emmanuel in 1871. The Two Sicilies were 
from early times under so many different nations and so taxed 
by various tyrants that progress has been impossible until the 
last few years. As late as 1863 nine-tenths of the population 
could neither read nor write, and though great efforts are now 
being made to enlighten them, it is discouraging to find the 
majority of the people averse to any improvement. With their 
ignorance, of course, superstition goes hand in hand. Every 
one wears a charm to keep off the Evil Eye, while the fisher- 
men have their boats blessed regularly with great ceremony to 
aid their catch, and the first lire that any one can beg, steal or 
borrow goes at once for a lottery ticket. 

The present King only comes occasionally to the old 
royal palace and twice a week visitors are given permission 
to go through. It has a very fine marble stairway, dating 
from 1650, and a little theatre and great dining-room that 
are worth seeing, but the summer palace out at Capodimonti 
is much more attractive. Its elevation commands a superb 
view of all the islands in the bay, and it is filled with many 
interesting modern pictures and specimens of the porcelain 
called Capodimonti that was made here at an earlier day. 
The richly ornamented cradle with mother-of-pearl and gold, 
presented by the city of Naples to Queen Margherita in 1869, 
is shown, and the boy for whom it was intended, now the 
present King Victor Emanuel III., was formerly called the 
Prince of Naples. Many relics are to be found of the stormy 
days of Marie Antoinette's sister. Queen Caroline, who was 
finally driven from her throne here, and tales are told of her 
entertainment of Lord Nelson and his fair charmer. Lady 



12 RAMBLES ABROAD 

Hamilton, that rival in interest the exciting adventures of 
Queen Caroline's spy, Fra Diavolo. 

There are over three hundred churches in Naples and one 
often thinks they need more. In the Cathedral is the tomb of 
their patron Saint Januarias, and the ceremony is still gone 
through every May and September, called the liquifaction of 
his blood. A great crowd assembles, then after many prayers 
a priest holds up the phial containing a few drops of this holy 
blood, and as it quickly or slowly solidifies, so do the people 
believe the year will be propitious or not. It is astonishing 
to watch the anxiety of the crowd while the priests are trying 
to convince themselves before making this impossible state- 
ment of its liquifaction, and one is reminded of Mark Twain's 
comment that "Faith is believing what you know isn't so." 

In the church of St. Croce al Mercato has been placed a 
column which showed formerly the exact spot in the Piazza 
nearby where young Conradin was beheaded in 1268. His only 
wrong was coming down to claim his own kingdom when in 
the hands of his enemy, and when going to the scaffold he 
threw his gauntlet into the crowd, entreating some one to take 
up his cause after his death and abolish the tyranny of Charles 
of Anjou. The Sicilian Vespers later vindicated the young 
fellow's tragic fate. 

In the sacristy of the church of San Domenico is the tomb 
of the Marquis Pescara, most curiously placed high up in a 
little gallery that goes around the room. He rests in a wooden 
box covered with red velvet that lost its bloom centuries ago. 
His picture, sword and banner hang over his coffin and that is 
all that is left to tell the tale. He was one of Charles V.'s best 
fighters, and helped win Pavia, where the defeated Francois I. 
of France wrote his mother the famous message: "All is lost 
save honor." The mighty Emperor Charles testified his appre- 
ciation of the Marquis' valor by going in person to see his 



A GLIMPSE OF NAPLES 



13 



celebrated widow, Vittoria Colonna. She came of a Roman 
family so great and powerful that for five hundred years no 
treaty was made in Rome without their signature, and the name 
became so syrnbolic of might that when the old head of the 
family was attacked by brigands on the highway, he majestic- 
ally announced to them: "I am Stephen Colonna!" and they 
fell back terrified and let him pass. 




ST LUCIA— NAPLES 



Vittoria, the flower of the family, was a great beauty, 
highly cultured, a rare combination of greatness, goodness and 
intelligence. This Marquis Pescara whom she married came 
from the island of Ischia, and it was there she retired after his 
death to mourn her loss in verse. When Ischia was attacked 
by Louis XII. of France, the Marquis' sister held the palace so 
valiantly she was rewarded with the governorship of the island, 



14 RAMBLES ABROAD 

an honor the family retained many years. Vittoria Colonna 
meantime returned to her early home in Rome, much to the 
regret of Naples, and took at once the position she filled so 
well — the social leader of the most brilliant circle in Rome. 
There Michael Angelo learned to appreciate her worth, and the 
devoted friendship of the two lasted for years. He talked over 
with her his dreams and plans, and found inspiration in her 
praise. That it was more than friendship seems improbable, 
as she was fifty and he was sixty-five when they met, and his 
admiration of her, which he expressed in the following sonnet, 
is more suggestive of homage to something above him than of 
anything else: 



'For Oh, how good, how beautiful must be 

The God that made so good a thing as thee." 

'Forgive me if I cannot turn away 

From those sweet eyes that are my earthly heaven, 
For they are guiding stars benignly given, 

To tempt my footsteps to the upward way; 
And if I dwell too fondly in thy sight 

I live and love in God's peculiar light." 



Out at Capodimonte there has lately been hung a fine 
painting of her death. Michael Angelo is reverently kissing 
her hand, and such grief is depicted on the great master's face 
that one can easily see he has lost his best friend. 

She never married again after the dearly beloved Marquis' 
death, and guide-books say she is buried beside him in that 
big roomy box in the sacristy, but the old padre told me 
honestly no one really knew whose body it was that was put 
in, and you know Voltaire said : "History is a trick we play 
with the dead." 



AMALFI 



Araam 



"Sweet the memory is to me, 

Of a land beyond the sea, 
Where the waves and mountains meet, 

Where, amid her mulberry trees 
Sits Amalfi in the heat. 

Bathing ever her white feet 
In the tideless summer sea." 

EVERY man, woman and child who can earn, borrow or 
beg the money should take the drive, from La Cava to 
Amalfi, and then continue on from Amalfi to Castella- 
mare. Fancy California, the Garden of the Gods, and Switzer- 
land all combined, and you have a slight idea of its beauty! 

The road skirts the Gulf of Salerno, whose waters are 
sapphire, turquoise, opal and amethyst in the warm sunshine, 
and all along the coast one winds in and out, up and down 
the great mountains covered with innumerable lemon groves 
and almond trees in flower, the first sign of Spring. Pepper 
trees drop their branches gracefully over the old walls, violets 
peep timidly out from all the crevices, ivy asserts its possession 
of vacant spots, while here and there a little Yankee dandelion 
jumps up impudently. Groups of orange trees ladened with 
fruit are in sight at every turn, for grow they will in spite of 
all neglect, and the olive trees, old as time, appear to have a 
consciousness that they have an important mention in the 
Bible. Little towns nestle down between the mountains, 
while a fine beach slopes out to the water on which mustard, 
spread out in great patches to dry on the sand, adds unknow- 
ingly to the color scheme. 

In one little hamlet a small vessel was just starting to 

[17] 



18 RAMBLES ABROAD 

take emigrants for America to their waiting ship in Naples. 
It was a never-to-be forgotten sight. The entire village was 
on the beach for the last good-bye, the many colored scarfs of 
the women blended together, making a living mosaic. Excite- 
ment ran high as the men shouldered their little bundles, and 
like Bobby Shafto, started out to sea, promising, no doubt, to 
come back to marry their true loves. Bobby's silver buckles 
were, alas, missing from their knees, and one could not help 
wondering if the little they took with them would be increased 
a hundred fold in America, the country where every one sup- 
posedly becomes a Midas, turning all he touches to gold. Un- 
fortunately, even in these remote villages, the native costumes 
are no longer worn, and the women await eagerly the daily 
fashion hints that now make all the world kin. 

It is noticeable in all the towns that there is no building. 
Everything is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow; 
progress is unknown, the people merely live and die and 
change nothing. On some mountains so steep that even the 
inquisitive goat fears to ascend, monks centuries ago erected 
monastaries. They tip the peaks like little crowns and look 
too high up and far away for human habitation. Natural 
grottoes have been hollowed by time and water out of the 
sides of some of the hills, and make dark, terrible looking 
caverns, suitable homes for fairy-tale witches. Just over them, 
old buildings stand, and the inmates appear quite oblivious 
of the fact that any moment they may all sink into the cave 
beneath. One wishes one's head were on a pivot and longs to 
be Argus-eyed to see in all directions. Little shrines are 
tucked in out-of-the-way corners, and saints must grow weary 
indeed waiting for a chance pilgrim to offer up a prayer. 
Down some of the ravines waterfalls are rushing and little cas- 
cades coax artists to do their best. Ruined towers, erected in 
early times to keep off the pirates, stand like sentinels at 



AMALFI 21 

regular distances along the coast, and an occasional woebegone 
inn proudly displays the would-be alluring sign, in English: 
"Cook's Coupons taken here." 

Some of the mountains are bold, rugged and bare, and 
scowl on their neighbors, satisfied that they contain untold 
riches for future millionares to mine. On others, farms are 
terraced all up the sides and the lemon trees have a kind of 
canopy of poles and straw over them for protection and sup- 
port, which adds like a frame to their picturesqueness. One 
sees women carrying in to town great baskets of fruits on their 
heads, or enormous piles of wood. They walk for miles with 
these burdens, munching now and then a dry crust with cheese. 
Daily bread is unknown in Italy. My idea is that there is one 
annual baking for the whole country, and my experience is that 
the last baking was a failure. Rich and poor eat the same 
hard substance, compared with which the rock of Gibraltar is 
almost fragile, and to penetrate through the crust a pick-axe is 
better than a tooth. 

The roads could not be better, and the early people who 
laid them out centuries ago, builded better than they knew, for 
they have not been "for an age, but for all time." At each 
turn the view is more beautiful than at the last, and Amalfi is 
the climax of all. It is said the sun shines there when it will 
not show its face anywhere else, and one quite forgets, in the 
balmy air, that the rest of the world may be having snow 
storms and blizzards. 

Longfellow's poem, "Amalfi," gives a living picture of 
the place. 

" 'Tis a stairway, not a street, 

That ascends the deep ravine, 
Where the torrent leaps between 

Rocky walls that almost meet. 
Toiling up from stair to stair 

Peasant girls their burdens bear; 



22 RAMBLES ABROAD 

Sunburnt daughters of the soil, 
Stately figures, tall and straight, 

What inexorable fate 

Dooms them to this life of toil?" 

In the Middle Ages it was one of the most important sea- 
ports in the world, and its maritime code is still used by all 
ships, but today it only furnishes soap, macaroni and paper for 
export, and the commercial world could easily do without its 
help. The old Cappuccini convent shown in the picture is now 
a hotel, standing high above the other buildings and approached 
by a flight of one hundred and ninety-eight steps, up which the 
weak and weary may be carried in sedan chairs. The monks' 
cells are at present neat little bedrooms, immaculately clean, 
and the chapel, cloister, and garden, in existence seven hundred 
years ago, make one of the most unique hotels in existence. 

"Lord of vineyards and of lands, 

Far above the convent stands. 
On its terraced walk aloof 

Leans a Monk with folded hands, 
Placid, satisfied, serene, 

Looking down upon the scene 
Over wall and red-tiled roof ; 

Wondering unto what good end 
All this toil and traffic tend, 

And why all men cannot be 
Free from care and free from pain, 

And the sordid love of gain. 
And as indolent as he." 

In the thirteenth century, St. Andrew's body was brought 
from Constantinople to its resting place here in the Cathedral; 
at least it is claimed to be the Apostle's body, but how aston- 
ishing a sight it would be if the dead could come forth out of 
these tombs, where memory is knealing, and how many cases 
of mistaken identity there would be! 

The dreadful landslide of ]899 was almost too close for 



AMALFI 25 

comfort, and one sees exactly how the rocks and earth swept 
down, carrying two English women with them. 

No railroad keeps Amalfi in touch with the outer world, 
and the days when it rivaled Pisa and Genoa are long since 
passed. It is an ideal spot for those afflicted with ingrowing 
nerves or for a wedding trip, for sitting high above the world 
in the cloister garden filled with the fragrance of heliotrope 
and roses, seeing the blue sky and still water, and hearing the 
song of a bird or distant tolling of a little bell, this comes to 
mind: 

"Afar though nation be on nation hurled, 

And life with toil and ancient pain depressed, 
Here one may scarce believe the whole wide world 
Is not at peace, and all men's hearts at rest." 



A GLIMPSE OF ROME 



^A Glimpse of Rome 

ROME has swayed the whole world four different times. 
In early days her legions took nation after nation 
captive and subjected them to Roman rule. Later 
all bowed down and adopted her great laws so that even today 
in our law courts one recognizes her jurisprudence. At another 
period she was acknowledged to be the home of art and the 
artistic center of the universe, and again her power was felt 
once more in her religious influence, for Rome became the head 
of the Christian world, and her authority in the church was as 
undisputed as her military commands had formerly been. 

At every turn one is reminded here of "the days when to 
be a Roman was greater than to be a king." Relics of this 
might and grandeur are on all sides, and it is a striking con- 
trast to picture the men as they were, and then to see them as 
they are. They were first, last and supposedly always to be a 
race of great warriors. The legend of Romulus and Remus, 
founders of Rome, claims both were the sons of Mars, god of 
war, hence the Roman idea of glory was always the glory of 
conquest, with triumphal arches and columns to commemorate 
their victories. Now, with the exception of the officers, the 
majority of Italian soldiers are small-framed, dirty and indo- 
lent-looking, and they will surely never stand on pedestals for 
future sightseers to admire. 

Rome is haunted by tragedy. Here more than in any 
other place in the world one feels the heart throbs of history. 
Ampere said that in ten years one could get a superficial idea 
of the city, but one should remain twenty years to learn any- 
thing worth writing. Trajan's column still stands where 

[29] 



30 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



Constantine the Great, before moving his capitol to Constanti- 
nople from Rome, proclaimed his conversion to Christianity in 
312, and thereby planted the seed that resulted in the harvest of 
about three hundred and fifty churches in Rome today. To 
rebuild, the people never entirely tore down, so every section 
of each building is of another age and for another purpose, and 
the crumbling wonders of the past still stand triumphant among 
the marvels of modern architecture. 

Everything in St. Peter's was planned in proportion to its 
vast surroundings, consequently one cannot. appreciate at first its 

immensity, nor realize an 
ocean steamer could be put 
in this Cathedral with room 
left on all sides. Thepenheld 
by one of the statues is seven 
feet and the little cherubs are 
really giants in measurement. 
There are three hundred and 
ninety beautiful statues and 
forty-four chapels inside its 
walls, the richly-colored mar- 
bles give a tone of exquisite 
harmony, and the dome is 
-unequaled in any other build- 
ing. Michael Angelo needed 
It stands out as the master- 




MICHAEL ANGELO 



no other monument to his ability 
work of a mighty master-hand. 

Then you learn that the Vatican is still larger, but the 
human mind cannot easily grasp such colossal dimensions. 
There are twenty courts and two hundred and eighty stairways, 
and though it is known as the residence of the Pope, his apart- 
ments are but one tiny part of the great whole. It is the richest 
treasure house in existence, and the rooms are so endless one 



A GLIMPSE OF ROME 



31 



longs for Puss' Seven League Boots to cover the distance. In 
the great library are over twenty-eight thousand manuscripts, 
as well as the oldest known Bible. It is in Greek and abso- 
lutely priceless. Then there is Cicero's "Republic" in the 
original, Michael Angelo's poems (one recalls how he longed 
to be a writer instead of an artist), autographs of Tasso, 
Petrach, and dozens 
of other ancient writ- 
ers. Not the least in- 
teresting documents 
in the glass cases are 
the love letters of 
Anne Boleyn and 
Henry VIII. of Eng- 
land, written in old 
French, then the lan- 
guage of the English 
court. The seductive 
young woman learned 
soon after how short- 
lived was the mon- 
arch's fancy, when 
her head was on the 
block and he was 
hurrying away to cap- 
ture another wife. 
Cardinal Wolsey sent 
these letters to the Pope a few years later, and after six hun- 
dred years people are still gazing at them. Various presents 
from different sovereigns to their Popes are scattered through 
this great hall, including malachite vases from Czars of Russia, 
Berlin porcelain from rulers of Germany, and a fount of the 
most exquisite Sevres china from which the Prince Imperial of 
France was baptised. 



i^^^ X 


4^iPlr ^^^^^^H 


R 


^ "^'^^^^H^^^H 


i 


W^^^^m '-JI^H JmIK fl^H 



RAPHAEL'S "TRANSFIGURATION' 
THE VATICAN 



32 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



Up-stairs are the wonderful paintings and statues. "Art 
is long," in Rome, and the thousand wonderful statues that 
were once ground for cement by usurpers are now neither 
missed nor needed. The "Apollo Belvedere," the "Laocoon" 
and "Father Nile," are the best known pieces among the statu- 
ary, while the greatest painting is Raphael's "Transfiguration" 
which was carried in his funeral procession as a proof of his 




RAPHAEL'S FRESCO OF BAPTISM OF CONSTANTINE IN THE VATICAN 

fame. He was called upon, too, to fresco the papal state apart- 
ments, and they are counted among the wonders of Rome. 
These rooms are always known as Raphael's Stanzes and they 
depict great scenes from the lives of the Popes; the conver- 
sion of Constantine; his giving the city of Rome over to the 
Pope; Attila the Hun; and many other famous subjects. Few 
sightseers find, though it is here, the wonderful Raphael tapestry 
which was made from a cartoon by that artist. It is a glowing 



A GLIMPSE OF ROME 



33 



picture, from scenes in the New Testament, as marvelous as 
his frescoes, but the 
young artist died 
shortly after, before, 
unfortunately, he 
had finished all his 
work on the Stanzes. 
The Sis tine 
Chapel takes its 
name from its foun- 
der, Sixtus IV., and 
there the Pope pre- 
sides when he is 
called upon to per- 
form any ceremony. Michael Angelo did the ceiling with 
scenes from the Creation, etc., then after the length of thirty 




RAPHAEL'S FRESCO OF "VISION OF ATTILA THE HUN' 

WHEN HE SEES ST. PAUL AND ST. PETER 

COMMANDING HIM TO SPARE ROME 




STSTINE CHAPEL— MICHAEL ANGELO'S "LAST JUDGMENT" AT THE END 



34 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



years the old man was called back to add to his triumph and 
though protesting he was only a sculptor, and not a painter, 
he exceeded even himself in the "Last Judgment," on the end 
wall. His great statue of Moses is in the church of St. Pietro 
in Vincoli; in fact one sees so many evidences of his work and 
so many great buildings erected by his skill, one appreciates 

why Mark Twain said, 
he understood Italy 
had been made from 
designs by Michael 
Angelo! 

The ruins of the 
Baths of Caracalla 
and Diocletian are so 
vast that the original 
buildings must have 
been appalling in 
their size. Indeed so 
extensive were the 
baths of Rome that 
sixty thousand people 
could wash at the 
same time; so luxuri- 
ous were they that 
meals were served, 
lectures given in 
them and many hours 
of the day were spent 
over these ablutions; but wash as they did for physical purity 
they never cleansed themselves of that immorality that brought 
the degeneracy of Rome. A cold plunge in the Tiber had 
satisfied their forefathers, and they were the mightiest Romans 
of them all. 




MICHAEL ANGELO'S "MOSES" IN ST. PIETRO 
IN VINCOLI 



A GLIMPSE OF ROME 



35 



Leo XIIL lies in a simple marble coffin over a door in St. 
Peter's, where all Popes are placed until their tombs are ready. 
He desired to be buried in the Lateran, a church in which he 
made many improvements, for it was very dear to his heart as 
the resting place of his ideal. Pope Innocent III., whom he 
strove to imitate, and he is to be entombed opposite his 
model. Since his death, many changes have been made in 
this, the oldest church in Rome, hence called the Mother 
Church, for Leo left in his will 
quite a sum for its embellish- 
ment. The skulls are pre- 
served here of St. Peter and 
St. Paul, also the baptismal 
fount used by Constantine the 
Great, and in a building ad- 
joining, one sees the holy of 
holies — the stairway from 
Pilate's house in Jerusalem, 
down which the Lord walked 
while the blood dropped from 
his scourged body. This old 
relic is now covered with 

1 J -1 • J- HOLY STAIRWAY (LATERAN) 

glass and pilgrims come from 

all over the world to climb up it on their hands and knees, 

kissing the blood stains in hope of absolution. 

The monument of Victor Emmanuel II. at the head of the 
Corso is so mammoth that after years of toil and the payment 
of millions of dollars, only the carving on the great marble 
pedestal is nearing completion. Lack of courage to tax the 
people for more money to finish it, delays the work on the 
colossal horse and rider. It is to be so high it will be seen 
from great distances, and is intended to eclipse all other 
monuments in Italy. 




36 RAMBLES ABROAD 

The popular fancy that American millionaires are richer 
than men have ever been before, pales before the Roman 
records of Prince Doria, accommodating one thousand in his 
palace outside the family apartments; of Cicero owning four- 
teen different villas, and of Caesar being able to feed the 
populace at twenty-five thousand tables at once, after his vic- 
tories. When the conquerors, returning with the enormous 
and priceless spoils of war, came down the Appian Way with 
gold chariots, elephants, camels, horses, jewels, and thousands 
of prisoners from the different nations in subjection, a slave 
always whispered in their ear, least they should grow giddy, 
being the center of such dazzling display, "Remember, thou 
too art mortal !" 

Every afternoon a long stream of carriages goes through 
the old square of the Popolo with scarcely a glance from the 
occupants at the familiar Obelisk that was one of eleven 
brought to Rome from Egypt, neither do they see the arch 
near by that was put up nearly four hundred years ago for the 
triumphal entry of that eccentric personage. Queen Christina of 
Sweden. This procession of turnouts then winds its way back 
and forth up the steep hill of the Pincio, and there in the warm 
sunlight amid the palms and the trees and the flowers, these 
fashionables take little interest in admiring the picturesque 
fountains, the graceful swans or the extravagant number of old 
statues, for they are on pleasure bent, more to be seen than to 
see. This is the daily drive of the wealthy aristocracy of 
Rome, and the old Dowager Princesses come forth in such 
attire and equipages as only the wealth of Rome can command, 
while mingling in the cosmopolitan crowd one notices many 
American millionaires, who following the dictates of fashion, 
spend the winter in Rome and contrive during these daily out- 
ings "to look supernaturally grand." 

In old Rome the finest homes were built on the Palatine 



A GLIMPSE OF ROME 



37 



hill, and in time took from a corruption of that word the name 
of palaces. The old Roman days of splendor are recalled by 
visits today to the magnificent residences scattered through 
the city. Gloomy, dark and unattractive on the exterior, those 
on the outside little know what treasures they hide, and often 
tourists going through what they thmk an unimportant back 
street with deserted old stone buildings, are passing the abodes 
of the richest fam- 
ilies of Rome. Thus 
the Doria, Colonna 

and Corsini palaces 

should not be 

missed. 

One goes to the 

Barberini to see 

Guido Reni's famous 

portrait of "Beatrice 

diCenci;" Raphael's 

]ove,the"Fonorina," 

and Andrea del Sar- 

to's beautiful "Holy 

Family," while in 

the home of the old 

Rospigliosa family 

is Guido Reni's "Au- 
rora" of which so 

many have copies. The Villa Borghese was at one time 

the home of Napoleon Bonaparte's sister Pauline, as she 

married a prince of Borghese. Canova's lovely statue of 

her as Venus, is considered by many to be the most beautiful 
marble in Rome of a woman. Among the other treasures in 
this palace are Bernini's exquisite "Apollo and Daphne," rep- 
resenting her just as the gods have heard her prayer, and to 




BEATRICE DI CENCI, by GUIDO RENI 



38 RAMBLES ABROAD 

save her from Apollo are turning her into a laurel tree. One 
sees leaves coming out on her arms, and her skin turning 
into bark. 

Up-stairs are Titian's "Sacred and Profane Love," that 
Mr. Pierpont Morgan made such a determined effort to secure, 
and Raphael's "Entombment," which, with Correggio's 
"Danae," rank first in this collection of great paintings and 
marbles. The King has lately purchased the palace which is 
now a museum, and with its grounds has named it the Villa 
Umberto, in memory of his late father. 

It is open daily to sightseers, while the beautiful park, 
fragrant with flowers, makes an ideal drive, where one sees 
the beauty of nature contrasted in the late afternoon with fash- 
ion's arts. Another well-known drive in Rome is out to the 
Villa Pamphilj-Doria, where the grounds are miles in circum- 
ference and game abounds, while the parts under cultivation 
are a veritable masterpiece of landscape gardening. 

The Carnival is rapidly dying out, but it is still Folly's reign, 
a last chance- of which many avail themselves, to sin before 
Lent. One sees groups of fancy-dressed masquers dancing 
and singing in the streets and up to all kinds of tricks and 
pranks, climbing on the carriages, throwing kisses and pelting 
their victims with confetti, but beyond attending a few extra 
fetes, the majority of the people now let it come and go un- 
noticed, and only children and the idle still take it seriously. 

The Quirinale has only been occupied by the royal family 
since 1870, for previous to that time it belonged to the Pope, 
and many evidences of its ecclesiastical owners remain. It is 
a very old building, but the state rooms have been done over to 
suit modern taste, and apart from its interest as being the 
home of the King it occasions little enthusiasm. 

Among the modern efforts in Rome is the tunnel under 
the Quirinale Gardens to make a short cut through the city. It 




MARGHERITA, QUEfN MOTHER OF ITALV 



A GLIMPSE OF ROME 



41 



is lined with white tiles and is brilliantly lighted (according to 

the enthusiastic Italians) by 
a few and far between arc 
lights. It saves tramways, 
carriages and pedestrians go- 
ing around many blocks, but 
some one has pointed out 
what a bad idea to put the tun- 
nel under the R oyal Gardens 
in these days of anarchists 
andbombs— of which Italy has 
the largest known product. 




VICTOR EMMANUEL III., 
KING OF ITALY 

Queen Margherita, after 
the assassination of her hus- 
band, Humbert, in 1900, 
moved from the Quirinale to 
a fine modern palace at the 
entrance of the grounds of 
the Villa Borghese. She is 
so lovely and charmingly 
gracious to all, that she is the 
idol of the nation, and it is a 
well-known saying that her 
smile held Italy together, for 
even in her retired widow- 
hood she occasions as much 
admiration as the present 
Queen, her daughter-in-law. 




QUEEN HELENA, OF ITALY 



42 RAMBLES ABROAD 

Her son, Victor Emmanuel III., is proving himself an able 
ruler, but with the heavy taxes and distressing ignorance 
throughout the country, the improvement of present conditions 
is necessarily slow. The emigration to America has assumed 
alarming proportions, nevertheless the population is not de- 
creasing, and with the introduction of the silk and beet sugar 
industries, brighter times are undoubtedly in store for the 
masses. The Queen was Princess Helena of Montenegro, a 
woman educated at the Russian Court, and so well informed 
and attractive that her husband seeks no outside diversion, 
and with her two little girls, Yolande and Mafalda, and the 
long expected heir, the baby Humbert, they form an unusually 
happy family for a royal palace. 

The Trevi, the finest fountain in Rome, is not only remark- 
able as a work of art, but is interesting to all visitors on 
account of the pretty little superstition that any one wishing to 
return to Rome should take a swallow of this water and throw 
in a coin. Many wishes have been made beside it, for there 
cannot be any place to which people from all lands would 
sooner return than to the Eternal City, and it is an almost uni- 
versal hope that all roads will finally lead to Rome. It has 
attracted more noted people than any other place in the world, 
not even excepting the tomb of Christ. Every house has had 
its tragedy, every stone has tasted blood, and though its un- 
garnered prosperity ripened into decay, it is still without a 
rival among the great cities of the world. All that visitors can 
do is just to look and wonder, it is impossible to comprehend. 
As Crawford says: "Time moves on, she waits, cities fall, 
Rome stands. 



ANOTHER GLIMPSE OF ROME 



Anotker Glimpse of Rome 

BOSWELL said: "A Frenchman must be always talking, 
whether he knows anything of the matter or not; an 
Englishman is content to say nothing, when he has 
nothing to say." With the Italians the less they know the 
more assurances they make to you of their information, and 
they embellish their discourse with gestures that would outdo 
the deaf and dumb alphabet, until, waxing really enthusiastic 
over anything, they give one an exhibition of facial contortion 
and arm gymnastics that really makes a pleasant entertain- 
ment. 

Recently a new method of counting time was inaugurated, 
and now, instead of one P. M. the Italians say thirteen o'clock. 
Two o'clock is fourteen, and so on down to eleven at night 
which is twenty-three o'clock, and our midnight is zero. Next 
comes one o'clock as of old, followed by two and three and so 
on. It is confusing to note that a gallery will be open from 
ten to fifteen o'clock, which is ten A. M. to three P. M., but the 
Italians claim it is a much better way, as it saves adding A. M. 
or P. M. to distinguish day from night! 

Rome stands as proudly today on her seven hills as she 
did not only hundreds but thousands of years ago. The Forum 
is the center of antiquity, but the excavations are provokingly 
slow. In any other country where the government could not 
afford to carry on such a work faster, some enterprising citizens 
would have raised a fund to finish the revelation of such won- 
ders, but in Rome, the home of time, all feel the pres- 
ent will go with them to eternity and so there is no need of 
haste. It was the core of Roman life, where all that concerned 

[47] 



48 RAMBLES ABROAD 

the town took place. The lovely young Virginia was stabbed 
near by; here Cicero gave many of his orations to the people 
and Julius Caesar's feet have touched these very stones. Now, 
with the exception of a few lazy workmen and curious tourists, 
a pathetic solitude holds sway over the whole expanse. 

Every fresh excavation shames some established fact in 
Roman history, and this work proves conclusively that the 
children in the next generation will have very different ideas 
of the w&ys and customs of the Roman people than were 
taught their fathers and mothers. Even the Temple of the 
Vestal Virgins has now been taken from their possession and 
given over to Hercules. Their house, however, indicates what 
wealth and power was theirs, for they lived in as great luxury 
as the Empress with whom they alone had the honor of sitting 
at public fetes. Angelica Kauffmann's "Vestal Virgin" shows 
one of these six, robed in the usual designating white gar- 
ments. Their duty was to keep the sacred fire to the Goddess 
Vesta burning unceasingly night and day, and if any one of 
them was so unfortunate as to neglect this ofBce or to break 
the vow of chastity she was promptly enclosed in a stone wall. 
The mother of Romulus and Remus was the Vestal Virgin 
whom the God of War enticed away to the flame of love. 

The Colosseum has been likened to a bandbox with a side 
bitten out and in its ruin, part of the wall has been demolished. 
Its strength occasioned the saying that "While stands the 
Colosseum, Rome shall stand," and it has been the scene of 
more brilliant spectacles than any other building. Four 
hundred lions frequently contended in it at once and when the 
Christians were given them to devour it made keen sport for 
the blood-loving audiences. Yet the more Christians were 
killed the more Christians flourished and not all the might of 
conquering Rome could crush them. 

It was built by the Jews whom Titus led captives to Rome 



ANOTHER GLIMPSE OF ROME 



49 



after his conquest of Jerusalem. The first of this people had 
been brought here prisoners by Pompey, but in seventeen 
years they had denied themselves so much of their meager 
share of corn, in order to sell it, that they were enabled to 
loan money to no less a personage then Julius Caesar ! Then 
the next great body of Hebrew captives were put to work 
piling these great stones on each other for this Colosseum, and 
as they increased in numbers they were banished to a foul, 
unhealthy region of the city, which was called the Ghetto or 
"cut off." Although the Tiber yearly inundated their miser- 
able hovels and the 
slime all about never 
dried out, it was the 
only place in Rome 
where they were 
free from persecu- 
tion. Even in our 
own age the Jews 
were still almost as 
badly treated here 
as the early Chris- 
tians had been, and 
Mendelssohn wrote 

a friend his race was so hooted, hissed and maltreated in the 
streets, he could only take his children out after dark to show 
them the sights of Rome ! 

The sewers, the unrivaled aqueducts and the impregnable 
walls, as well as the great triumphant arches, could not be 
entirely demolished by all the disasters of time and the 
ravages of destroyers. The Pantheon, however, is the only 
building of ancient Rome that has been left in perfect preser- 
vation. It is strangely lighted by but one aperture in the roof, 
but from having been a pagan temple as well as a Christian 




PANTHEON— ROME 



50 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



church, it is now the Imperial Vault. There Victor Emmanuel 
II,, Father of his Country, and his son, the late King Humbert, 
are interred, and opposite them in a scarcely appropriate tomb, 
lies Raphael, Rome's master artist, whose works were 
prompted by his heart as Michael Angelo's were by his mind. 
Timid women shrink from the darkness and horror of the 
old Mamertine prison, and the Catacombs are only relished by 
the inquisitive and morbid, for in one the bones of four thou- 
sand are displayed, "upholstering" six sepulchral rooms! An- 
other spotassociated 
with death is the 
Tarpeian Rock; no 
such hill as Jack and 
Jill covered in their 
historic descent, but 
a sharp precipice 
over which all trai- 
tors were thrown 
from the day it took 
its name from Tar- 
peia, the daughter of 
the keeper of the 
Citadel who was willing to surrender its key if the invaders 
would give her their gold bracelets. 

The church of St. Paul's Outside the Walls looks modern 
because it was rebuilt after the fire in 1823, but the spot has 
been the burial place of the Apostle Paul ever since his death at 
the beginning of the first century, and the alabastar columns 
around his tomb strangely enough were sent for that purpose 
by a bloody Viceroy of Egypt. It is in this building that 
one finds the interesting freize of medallions of all the Popes, 
and it is well worth going the distance from the city to see 
anything as beautiful as its cloisters. 




CLOISTERS OF ST. PAUL'S OUTSIDE THE WALLS 



ANOTHER GLIMPSE OF ROME 



51 



A new Palais de Justice, or court house, is being built on 
the other side of the Tiber, not far away from the Castle St. 
Angelo. It is a very fine modern building, large and of white 
stone, exquisitely carved, and when finished will compare favor- 
ably with any other government building in existence. 

Before the Capitol two live wolves are always kept in a 
cage, as a tribute to the memory of the one that nourished 
Romulus and Remus, when their wicked uncle cast the two 




ST. PAUL'S OUTSIDE THE WALLS 



orphans adrift. In the center of the court stands the gigantic 
bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius on horseback, the philosopher- 
emperor, called "a sage on a throne," for he was as great with 
the pen as with the sceptre, and wrote in his leisure moments 
the well-known book "The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius." 
This statue is so ancient it was old even to Michael Angelo 
who was asked to superintend its erection at the Capitol after 
it was removed in 1538 from the Lateran. In the Capitoline 



52 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



collection are busts of all the emperors of Rome, and nearly 
every one committed suicide or was murdered. Here too are 
the celebrated statues of the "Dying Gladiator," the "Marble 
Faun," the "Venus of the Capitol," the "Bronze Wolf," also 
Guide Reni's peerless "San Sebastian," a well-known portrait 
of Michael Angelo, and so on without end. 

It was on the Capitol steps that Rienzi, the Tribune of the 




CAPITOL, ROME 



people, met his death. Bulwer-Lytton has put him in a novel, 
Wagner in an opera, and artists love to depict scenes from his 
remarkable career. He was the son of a washerwoman, but by 
personal magnetism and eloquence he persuaded the down- 
trodden people that he knew just what they wanted, and with 
startling rapidity climbed the ladder of power up to the top 
step. Then he grew giddy from the height of his own gran- 
deur. Forgetting his promises he taxed the people, just as his 



ANOTHER GLIMPSE OF ROME 



53 



predecessors had done, and encouraging them to believe he 
was more than mortal, he appeared on the streets with such 
pomp and splendor that old Stephen Colonna, always his 
enemy, could brook his impudence no longer, and rousing the 
people from their dazzled bewilderment, he headed a party for 
the overthrow of the 
tyrant Rienzi. His 
downfall was even 
more rapid than his 
rise. He was soon 
deserted by all, even 
his admiring friend, 
Petrach, began to see 
his faults, and he 
finally sought refuge 
of the Pope in Avig- 
non, whence he re- 
turned to Rome a 
few years later to 
make another elo- 
quent appeal to the 
masses. His hour, 
however, was passed, 
and as he entreated 
the crowd in a last 
effort, a man slew 
him right on the 
Capitol steps, up and down which now all the world goes, 
little thinking when they see his statue close by, of this man 
whom fame tempted and then mockingly left to his fate. 

The Academy of St. Luke has been an art school of superior 
standing for several hundred years. There hangs Van Dyke's 
lovable "Dutch Baby," and the picture that Mme. Le Brun did 




DUTCH BABY, by VAN DYKE-ST. LUKE'S 
ACADEMY, ROME 



54 RAMBLES ABROAD 

of herself while working here. Her stay in Rome was most 
profitable, but after tasting every triumph in the great cities 
throughout Europe, she desired only these simple words on 
her tomb: "At last I rest." The art models congregate in 
great numbers on the old steps of the Scala Spagna, and as it 
is the headquarters for flower venders, one sees such an artistic 
blending of beautiful faces and bright flowers that no more 
attractive spot is found in Rome. 

In early days the Romans made almost more preparation 
for death than for life. Thirty thousand tombs extended along 
the Appian Way, the most conspicuous now being that of 
Cecelia Metella, of which Byron wrote: 

"What was this tower of strength? Within its cave 

What treasure lay so locked, so hid? A woman's grave." 

Was she Crassus' wife or daughter? Was it built to 
show his pride and wealth, or his love for her? It is a deplor- 
able thing to have your monument outlive your fame, and 
better to have people ask why no monument was erected to 
you, than to have them seek in vain for a reason for building 
one. 

The greatest tomb in the world, excepting the Taj Mahal 
in India, is that shown in the picture of Emperor Hadrien. It 
was originally covered with slabs, of pure white marble, and 
richly ornamented with carving and statues, while inside 
rested his family and many of his successors, until 432, when 
the tomb was desecrated and the alabastar coigns broken. It 
made an ideal fortress in the succeeding battles, for its walls 
were thirty feet thick and it was regarded as so invincible it 
was considered a kind of rock of Gibraltar, where people went 
for safety. 

Different Popes have fled to it when the city was attacked, 
not the least among them being Hildebrand, Gregory VII. 



ANOTHER GLIMPSE OF ROME 



55 



He was the Pope who excommunicated the Emperor, Henry 
IV., and though the Emperor at first thought nothing of it, he 
realized when neither his soldiers nor his servants, for fear of 
eternal damnation, dared obey him, what it meant to be under 
the ban of the church, and finally was forced to beg the Pope's 
pardon, for which he made his famous pilgrimage over the 
Alps to Canossa, like any common penitent; but the end was 
not then, for once reinstated in grace, he sent for his troops and 




CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO. OR TOMB OF HADRIEX-ROME 

marched to Rome with fire and sword, swearing to avenge the 
humilation Gregory had brought upon him. The Pope seeing 
the tables were turned, hastened to Hadrien's tomb for safety, 
and when the Emperor was in full possession of the city, he 
escaped through one of its underground passages to Salerno, 
where he was afterwards buried in the Cathedral with these 
words by request on his tomb: "Because I have loved right- 
eousness and hated iniquity, I die in exile." 



56 RAMBLES ABROAD 

In 590, when the plague raged in Rome, prayers for its 
cessation were put up in all the churches, and Gregory the 
Great declared he saw one morning an angel with a drawn 
sword on the top of Hadrien's tomb, who showed by putting 
the sword back in its scabbard that the city was to be spared 
and the pestilence abated. The name was then changed to the 
Castle St. Angelo, or the Holy Angel, and the bronze chariot 
of Hadrien gave way to the figure of the angel who still keeps 
vigil over the great massive structure. 

In ancient times it was no unusual thing for "an angel to 
appear in Rome; there are churches to the left of one, and 
shrines to the right of one that were erected in memory of 
these visits. It would seem that saints, apostles and holy men, 
saw quite as much of the world as of heaven, and Jesus Christ 
takes a secondary place as compared with the importance of 
the Virgin Mary and the other saints of the calendar. 

Another famous prisoner incarcerated in Hadrien's tomb 
was Beatrice di Cenci, so familiar to us from Guido Reni's 
portrait. She was kept in St. Angelo until her sentence was 
pronounced for having killed her father, yet every one feels 
she had cause for the murder and great pity centers about her, 
for Beatrice di Cenci was undoubtedly more sinned against 
than sinning. She belonged to one of the most prominent 
families in Rome and the suspense during her trial held all the 
city spellbound. The judges showed such admiration of her 
courage it was necessary to secure other judges; though she 
was^ finally sentenced to the gibbet, her sin has been blotted 
otit in her father's montrous lust, and she rests unforgotten 
though in a nameless grave. 

Benvenuto Cellini, the wily goldsmith whom kings de- 
lighted to honor, was also locked in its prison walls, until he 
could persuade his judges to give him one more chance, and so 
the list of its well-known prisoners goes on without end. Now 



ANOTHER GLIMPSE OF ROME 57 

all is changed again and the castle is a garrison where the 
King's troops and ammunition are stored, ready for future use. 
Next to St. Peter's Cathedral it remains the most conspicuous 
building in Rome. Its size is colossal, people beside it look 
like midgets, and there it has held its ground since 136, A. D., 
and stands out today a very patriarch among landmarks. 

Another monument conspicuous for miles is the magnifi- 
cent equestrian bronze statue that Rome has erected to Gari- 
baldi, the man who was Victor Emmanuel's greatest help in 
uniting Italy. Indeed, the statues, columns and triumphal 
arches are incredibly numerous, and are by no means lessened 
in value by their number, for each one is perfect in itself; but 
Rome was not built in a day, and one must take more than a 
second glimpse to see even half of its wonders. 



NOTED EXILES AT REST IN ROME 



Noted Exiles at Rest in Rome 

AMONG the illustrious dead in St. Peter's it is startling to 
come upon a tomb marked King of England, and see 
beneath the British coat of arms, the well-known 
faces of "Bonny Prince Charlie," his father and his brother. 
The question at once presents itself of by what chance these 
last of England's Stuarts were buried so far from home? 

James II., the Catholic King of England, had two daugh- 
ters, Mary and Anne, who expected to succeed him, and one 
can understand their disappointment when their father married 
again and had by his second wife, a boy, the ill-fated James 
III. in the picture. The birth of that infant made the scandal 
of London, for his jealous step-sisters Mary and Anne, insinu- 
ated that the child was spurious, having been smuggled into 
the room in a warming-pan, hence he could never be an heir 
for a kingdom. Old English papers of the latter part of the 
seventeenth century have caricatures of and allusions to warm- 
ing-pans, for the story of this one changed history. Then, too, 
the nation grew so incensed at James' bigoted wish to make 
all England Catholic, that he was finally forced to flee for his 
life, and taking his young wife and the much slandered boy, he 
sought refuge of Louis XIV. in France, while his two faithless 
daughters carried out their plans and took their places in his- 
tory as Queen Mary and Queen Anne of England. 

James II., "the football of fortune," died in exile in France, 
and his son was given the title there of the "Pretendant," a 
claimant for a throne, but the English, in a spirit of contempt, 
translated it as the Pretender, meaning a false aspirant, and by 
that ignominious title he lived and died. He made several 

[61] 



62 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



unsuccessful attempts to recover his father's kingdom, but 
owing to lack of energy, or courage, finally gave up the strug- 
gle. He had married the high-spirited Clementine Sobrieska, 
of Poland, who protested during a few years of neglect, and 
then betook herself and her trouble to a convent, leaving her 
two little boys with their father — the three heads pictured on 

the tomb. They had 
made their home in 
the Palace of the 
Apostles in Rome, 
as the Pope, in his 
eagerness to see a 
Catholic rule in Eng- 
land, gave the Pre- 
tender a pension, 
and befriended him 
at every turn until 
he proved unworthy 
of his bounty. 

The two little 
boys, owing to the 
disputes between 
their parents, had 
their early education 

TOMB OF STUARTS (ST PETER'S, ROME) by SpaSmodlC at- 

tempts, and consequently the older grew up narrow-minded, 
petulant and conceited, with so unstable a character that he 
collapsed under the pressure of adversity. Yet he was loved 
all the better for his faults, and was so magnetic and idealized 
that a halo of romance always surrounded him, and in his 
desperate efforts to regain the lost kingdom of his father he 
had such brilliant ventures that one always loves to hear the 
ballads and tales of "Bonnie Prince Charlie." 




NOTED EXILES AT REST IN ROME 63 

Leaving his home in Rome, he landed with a few followers 
in Scotland, while his rival, King George IL, was away. Edin- 
burg was en fet,e in his honor, and received him with open 
arms. The small, but loyal party who had awaited the return 
of the Pretender, his father, swore undying allegiance to him, 
while the women made a god of the handsome young heir with 
such winning manners, who had come into his own again. 
England, however, cannot be won with a guinea and six thou- 
sand Highlanders, and in the famous battle of Culloden, in 
1746, his cause was lost forever. His escape to the coast was 
most exciting; after defeat came desertion from all sides, and 
he fled for his life disguised sometimes as a clergyman, often 
as a woman and finally as the maid of the Scotch heroine, 
Flora Macdonald. Hardship and hunger followed him, and 
sickness came fast after them, yet there was always found some 
doting woman willing, for a smile from the dashing young 
adventurer, to risk her life nursing him. Wine, women and 
song were the undoing of "Bonnie Prince Charlie," but )ie 
never lost his belief in himself, and the "divine right" of a 
Stuart king made him act, even in prison, like the ruler of the 
universe. 

As with Napoleon, it is to be regretted that he could not 
have died on the battle-field, for he lived on thirty years after 
his defeat, and returned to Rome, that he had left a promising 
hero, a poor, old, forsaken, dissipated exile. The last of his 
life was the worst of all, for false to his adherents, he turned 
Protestant, and in order to provide an heir for his party, went 
through a marriage with Louise of Stolberg, called the 
Countess of Albany, whom he so abused in his drunken rages 
that she sought refuge with the poet Alfieri. 

The exile died in Frascati, a suburb of Rome, where a 
monument in the church tells the story. The end is a striking 
contrast to the beginning, yet the memory of his early courage 



64 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



and ambition, makes the loyal Highlanders forget the darker 
side, and remembering only that he should by rights have been 
their king, they listen with a feeling of longing when the 
strains are played of "Will you no' come back again?" 

His younger brother inherited his rights, but had followed 
in the religious footsteps of his mother Clementine, and had 
become the Cardinal of York. He made no attempt to recover 

the lost throne, but con- 
tented himself by wearing a 
medal which said, "King of 
England by grace of God, 
but not by will of man!" 
When he died he was placed 
by the Pope in this tomb in 
St. Peter's with his father 
and brother. It is the work 
of the celebrated sculptor 
Canova, and the marble fig- 
ures of the angels of light 
with inverted torches have 
taken with time the hue of 
ivory and are rarely beau- 
tiful, while, as Hawthorne 
said, it is so impressive 
because it seems as if the 
last of a race had passed in, and then the door had closed 
forever. 

On the other side of St. Peter's rests another remarkable 
exile. Queen Christina of Sweden. As she was the daughter 
of their hero-king, Gustavus Adolphus, who died fighting for 
the Protestants in Germany, the world was electrified when she 
renounced the faith he had striven so long to promulgate, and 
proclaimed her conversion to the Catholic church. She was a 




CHRISTINA, QUEEN OF SWEDEN 



NOTED EXILES AT REST IN ROME 65 

woman of colossal intellect, but state duties became so ob- 
noxious to her that she boldly announced she would rather see 
the devil than her secretary with his papers. Her entreaties 
to abdicate were refused until she plunged into such a career 
of vice and dissipation that the horrified Swedes w^ere only too 
glad to give her up. After a great ceremony of abdication to 
her cousin, which is carved on the marble of her tomb, she 
donned man's attire and went forth to see the world. She saw 
it very thoroughly from every side, but was an unwelcomed 
guest at all courts, and after she had one of her followers put 
to death at Fontainebleau, Louis XIV. hinted to her that her 
rooms were more desirable than her company. 

She lived for many years in Rome in the splendid old 
Corsini Palace, enjoying a pension from the Pope, who 
thus showed his appreciation of so brilliant a convert to 
the faith, and she gathered about her there an unrivaled 
art collection. At picture sales today one often reads in 
the catalogue that such and such a painting was formerly 
in the possession of Christina of Sweden, and some of her 
precious manuscripts are now shown at the Vatican. In the 
Piazza del Popolo, where everyone goes to enter the park 
called the Pincio, stands the triumphal gate erected by Bernini 
in 1665, in honor of her arrival in Rome, for her advent made 
a red-letter day for the city, as this arch still testifies. She 
was masculine in all her ways, boasted she never spent more 
than a quarter of an hour at her toilet, and while her face al- 
ways inspired terror, her learning was the wonder of Europe. 
Famous men sought her salon, but respectable women feared 
to risk their reputations in her company. After her death the 
Pope placed her in St. Peter's, and over her tomb hangs her 
medallion — that of a bold, eccentric woman, who defied all the 
world. 

Far away in a quiet corner of Rome, called the Protestant 



66 RAMBLES ABROAD 

Cemetery, lie two more noted exiles — Keats and Shelley. 
The ashes of the latter were brought there in 1822, after his 
shipwreck, for he said once that "It might make one in love 
with death to be buried in so sweet a place." Violets are 
growing now over his simple tomb, while his devoted friend, 
Trelawny, was laid beside him a few years ago with this in- 
scription: 

"These are two friends whose lives were undivided, 
So let their memory be, now they have glided 
Under the grave; let not their bones be parted 
For their two hearts in life were single-hearted." 

Here, too, are the graves of Constance Fenimore Woolson, 
William and Mary Howitt, and the tomb of Mrs. W. W. Story 
was her husband, the sculptor's, last work before he was laid 
beside her in 1895. It is absolutely the most beautiful thing 
one could imagine in marble. A really heavenly angel, over- 
come with grief, lies prostrate across the tomb, while her 
exquisite arm falls over the edge, and it looks as though she 
had just dropped quietly the little white violets that are blos- 
soming on the grave. 

Keats' resting place in the old part of the grounds tells a 
wonderful story. This poet, who wrote the oft-quoted line, "a 
thing of beauty is a joy forever," died in great distress and 
poverty after a heartrending struggle for fame in a house on 
the Scala di Spagna in 1821. Underneath the broken lyre on 
his monument are these tragic words: "This grave contains 
all that was mortal of a young English poet, who, on his death- 
bed, in the bitterness of his heart at the malicious power of his 
enemies, desired these words to be engraven on his tombstone: 
'Here lies one whose name was writ in water'." 

One is filled with pity and regret that he could not have 
foreseen how the house in Rome would be marked with a tablet 



NOTED EXILES AT REST IN ROME 69 

because he had lived there, and that travelers from all over the 
world would come to pay tribute to his verse. Then one sees 
a little to the left of the grave a marble slab over which a cur- 
tain of ivy is draping itself, and these glowing words have been 
inscribed by his countless admirers: 

"Keats, if thy cherished name be writ in water, 

Each drop has fallen from some mourner's cheek. 
A sacred tribute, such as heroes seek, 
Though oft in vain, for dazzling deeds of slaughter. 
Sleep on! Not honored less for epitaph so meek." 

Then one realizes that time has avenged the memory of 
John Keats. 



POPE PIUS X. 




ropE PIUS X 



Pope Pius X. 



THE height of everyone's desire in Rome is to see the 
Pope. It is possible to catch a glimpse of the King 
and Queen at the opera or theatre, driving on the 
Pincio, or through the Gardens of the Villa Borghese, but with 
the Pope it is a more difficult matter, as he never leaves the 
Vatican, and one must have the entree to guarded rooms in 
order to see him. 

There are various ways to accomplish this, the usual one 
being through some influential person. An American who 
brings a letter to the Bishop of the Catholic College here, at 
once receives from him, gratis, a letter of introduction to His 
Holiness. 

However, not everyone can get a letter to the Bishop, or 
to a Cardinal, or even to a prominent priest. Another way, 
and the one used by some travelers, is through the porters of 
the leading hotels. In some mysterious way a permit may 
occasionally be procured in this manner, for evidently some 
one who can obtain tickets sells them to speculators who take 
them to the prominent hotels where the guileless guests may 
pay as high as they please for them. As no one is expected 
to pay to see a Pope, the latter way is, of course, unjust and 
illegal, and the church receives none of the money, only these 
enterprising speculators. 

It was almost impossible to get a glimpse of the late Leo 
XIII., but the people find this Pope more accessible, and he is 
so desirous of receiving the faithful, that it is feared he is 
greatly over-taxing his strength, and that his small weekly re- 
ceptions will soon have to be abandoned on that account. 

[751 



76 RAMBLES ABROAD 

Every woman present is required to wear a black gown, 
and nothing on her head but a black veil; the men wear full 
dress, although it is daytime. The invitations to these so-called 
receptions are not issued until twelve o'clock of the same day, 
and being so fortunate as to receive cards, we arrived at the 
Vatican door at the oppointed hour of three and showing our 
permit, were immediately passed up the great stairway by the 
Swiss Guard. These Guards are dressed in the same pictur- 
esque costumes that Michael Angelo designed for them, outdo- 
ing in blacks, yellows and reds, Joseph's coat of many colors, 
and standing so erect with their great spears in their hands, 
they looked just ready to be painted and framed. 

Their duty is, first and last, to protect the Pope, an honor 
considered so great that their pay is a mere pittance. The 
loyalty of a Swiss Guard has always remained above reproach, 
and even in the French Revolution, when the terrifying mob 
burst into the Tuileries, yelling to the soldiers to give up their 
swords, it was the Swiss Guard on duty before Marie 
Antoinette's door who alone had the courage to refuse, for he 
heroicly replied: "A Swiss Guard only gives up his weapons 
with his life," and then paid without a murmur the price of 
his loyalty. 

To reach the height of one's desire one must also reach 
the top of the Vatican. The marble stairway ascends until it 
seems one must be near heaven, and yet higher and higher on 
it goes, until one is reminded of the tired child who said the 
walk had all gone out of his legs. The Guards stand on every 
landing, and eye one as searchingly as a Pinkerton detective, 
with no need of X-rays to see through to the other side. 

At last we came to a large open court, after crossing which, 
to another hallway, one more long flight of marble steps makes 
the way of the transgressor very hard. "Upward and onward" 
could be the motto of the Vatican; but finally the goal was 



POPE PIUS X. 



77 



reached, and an old servant in red silk stockings, knee breeches 
and red brocaded velvet coat, showed us into a great room, 
magnificent with priceless frescoes, illustrating scenes from 
various Popes' lives. Here several more red liveried men 
stood ready to take one's wraps, and then we were passed on 
to a gentleman in full dress-, who knew, without a word of 
inquiry, better than any clairvoyant, just who each one was. 
He escorted us through four private rooms, one hung with 




ST. PETER'S AND THE VATICAN 



wonderfully fine tapestry, each filled with about twenty waiting 
guests, and seated us in the first room. The walls here were 
hung with the most exquisite crimson moire, the carpet was 
red velvet, the hangings red and green, and the ceiling was 
resplendent with the Pope's crest, the mitre and the keys of 
heaven that were given to St. Peter. On two marble tables 
with marvelously wrought gold-bronze legs, stood an oil lamp, 
although the building is now lighted with electricity, and also 
a very large bronze crucifix. The rooms of the Vatican impress 



78 RAMBLES ABROAD 

one with their quiet elegance. The materials used show at a 
glance that nothing better could be made; the silks have a 
shimmer, and the velvets a texture, that exceed anything in 
the Royal Palace, while the frescoes and tapestries are so valu- 
able they are seldom shown to the eyes of the outer world. 

There were twelve people in our room, and the black 
dresses were of all kinds, from jetted nets, lace and satins, to 
cloth tailor suits, and the women try to assume, with their black 
lace veils, an angelic expression, each one thinking she resem- 
bles, in that drapery, a Madonna! Almost everyone had a 
bunch of rosaries to be blessed. Both men and women drew 
off their gloves, and at promptly quarter after three a man in 
the doorway made a signal, and forming a circle, we all sank 
on our knees. 

There was a stillness of death. Then quietly, and as un- 
ostentatiously as a snowflake, in came the Pope. He appeared 
so suddenly, so unheralded, and with such an absence of pomp 
or ceremony, it took me several seconds to realize that in that 
simple, kind looking old man, robed in white, I was really see- 
ing Pius X., the Pope of Christendom. His secretary. Cardinal 
Merry del Val, stood at his side and pointed out the various 
guests who were of special distinction. Then the Pope walked 
around and took each person in turn by the hand and said a 
few words in blessing. All good Catholics kissed his hand 
while he greeted them. 

When he came to bless me, in my eagerness to see the 
real man back of the Pope, I could not keep both eyes closed 
for very long, and looking straight into his kind, blue eyes, his 
sincerity was so impressive, one felt instinctively he could 
never be anything but a father to his people. 

He was dressed all in white broadcloth, with white moire 
sash, and little moire cap on the back of his head, going well 
with his heavy gray hair. From a gold chain around his neck 



POPE PIUS X. 79 

hung a crucifix set with emeralds, and his red shoes had little 
gilt heels. He is of medium height, rather stout, with a peas- 
ant's ruddy complexion, but his eyes have a tired look, that 
shows how trying the confinement of the Vatican must be to him. 

He spoke in a low voice and, after addressing each one, 
he stood in the middle of the room and, making the sign of 
the cross, blessed us all together and then passed softly into 
the next waiting room. There were about one hundred pres- 
ent, and in a short time his greetings were over and he con- 
tinued on for a walk in the garden, while we retraced our steps 
down the great stairway, leaving the "Prisoner of the Vatican" 
alone in his glory. 

In 1871, when Victor Emmanuel II. united Italy, Pope Pius 
IX, was against him, and after the King's victory the Pope 
was deprived of his so-called temporal power, meaning the 
control of the lands owned by the church. Since that bitter 
defeat the Popes have refused to go out into the city that was 
formerly their own, and so they have remained ever since shut 
up in the Vatican. All that is left to them in Rome are the 
Vatican and Lateran Palaces and they receive an annuity of 
$645,000 from the crown as indemnity. 

The Castle of Gondolfo, just outside the city, is also theirs, 
and there is a plan to have Pius X. spend his summers 
there, that he may have the much needed change to cooler air 
and yet, so to speak, be under his own vine and fig tree. To 
reduce expenses he is cutting down the pay list of the Vatican, 
doing away with unnecessary oiTficials, changing the singing for 
church services, and making many improvements. It is also 
hoped by the "Whites," or King's party, that he will assert 
himself over the Cardinals' objections, and, burying the old 
feud, go out again into Rome. 

His sisters, good peasant women, who had bought third- 
class tickets to Rome and were quite annoyed when they were 



80 RAMBLES ABROAD 

provided with a private car, live near the Vatican and see their 
brother twice a week. The Pope himself, as Cardinal Sarto, 
had a return-trip ticket to Venice from the conclave, so little 
did he think he would be the chosen one of all the Cardinals. 

He may not be like Leo XIII. , a learned scholar, nor yet a 
crafty statesman, and the only nobility about him is in his daily 
life, yet everyone who sees him must feel he will be some- 
thing better than a great or wise Pope for he will certainly be 
a good one. Undoubtedly it will be with him as it was with 
Sir Galahad who, of all the gallant knights, was the one to see 
the Holy Grail — "for his strength was as the strength of ten, 
because his heart was pure." 



A GLIMPSE OF MILAN 



A Glimpse of Milan 

ITALIAN railroads are sadly out of date. The first-class 
compartments are not so good as the second class in 
Germany, and the trains are nearly always late and so 
overcrowded it is possible now and then to hear a little plain 
American swearing, when some tourist has been pushed into a 
compartment with no vacant seat. All this is explained by the 
fact that the franchise expires soon, and the road will spend no 
money on improvements until a future contract is settled. 

Not a pound of luggage is allowed on the tickets, and 
after paying ten dollars extra for an ordinary trunk on a twenty- 
four hour trip, women regret Eve ever ate the apple that we 
had to dress, and foreign travel in the fig-leaf days must have 
been considerably cheaper. One should pack a camel as is 
done for a trip in the desert with one's personal effects, a rock- 
ing chair and Yaryan heating plant, and other little things that 
add to one's comfort during a winter in Italy, for there it is cold 
on one side of a street and hot at the same time on the other; 
summer all year round when the sun shines, and always winter 
in the shade. Consequently one must keep turning like a 
roasting peanut to keep an average temperature. Perhaps 
before long some one will invent a Laocoon hot-water bag for 
the benefit of sightseers in cold galleries, where the tubes can 
coil all round one at once like the serpents on the famous 
statue in the Vatican, and then warmth could be added to the 
body as well as to the enthusiasm. 

Milan has lately made more progress than any other town 
in Italy. It is now a fine, modern city, with immense commer- 
cial and manufacturing interests, not the least being the silk 

[83] 



84 RAMBLES ABROAD 

industry, for there are now over two hundred silk firms in 
active business. 

Our word "milliner" comes from the fact that in early 
times, at the great annual fairs throughout Europe, the traders 
from Milan used to appear with silks, ribbons, hats, and other 
little fancy things so dear to the heart of women, and grad- 
ually any one dealing in these things took the name of this 
people. 

The Cathedral is one of the largest and surely one of the 
most beautiful of the world's churches. It holds forty thousand 
people comfortably, and its stained-glass windows are the 
largest ever made, but it is the carving on the exterior that 
excites the most admiration, for every pinnacle is tipped with 
an exquisite statue. There are over four thousand, and they 
stand in all the niches, one after the other, as modestly as if 
each one had not been the work of years — each figure perfect 
in itself but adding its part to complete the great whole. From 
1383 it has been building and is not yet done. Napoleon, after 
conquering Italy, gave new enthusiasm to the work, and it is 
noticeable all through the country the changes he made when 
it came under his sceptre, for his name is left like a trade-mark 
on every project he undertook, and one of the statues on the 
Cathedral represents him in classic dress. 

Milan is especially noted for its fine sculpture; students 
find here an ideal place for study, and the studios are without 
number. In the Brera Art Gallery is Raphael's celebrated 
picture, "The Nuptials of the Virgin," and the great bronze 
statue by Canova is the pride of the collection. In the Palazzo 
Borromeo are many art treasures, but Milan's most valued 
painting is Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" in the refectory 
of the old church of Santa Maria del Grazie. It is now very 
indistinct and much disfigured, but still shows how wonderful 
it must have been when fresh from the hand of the great 



A GLIMPSE OF MILAN 



87 



master. It depicts the startled expression of the Apostles' 
faces as the Lord announces: "One of you shall betray Me." 




LEONARDO DA VINCI'S "LAST SUPPER" IN MILAN 

Out in front of the Cathedral is a magnificent monument 
in bronze to Victor Emmanuel,, representing the conqueror on 
horseback, so life-like it deserves all the praise it receives. On 
the other side is the Galleria Victor Emmanuel, an arcade of 
vast proportions and rich designs containing fine shops, cafes, 
etc., through which all Milan promenades. The Palazzo Reale, 
or Royal Palace, stands close by, but it is only on rare occa- 
sions occupied by 
the King and Queen, 
who spend most of 
their time in Rome, 
and the Archiepis- 
copal Palace, in the 
same neighborhood, 
is of mammoth size 
and of equal inter- 
est. 

Among the 
treasured relics of galleria, or arcade, in milan 




88 RAMBLES ABROAD 

Milan were the bones of the Three Wise Men, who came from 
the East to see the child Jesus, but when Frederick Barbarossa 
conquered and destroyed Milan he sent them to his beloved 
German city of Cologne, where they stayed until 1904, when 
Milan asked to have them restored to their original tomb in 
the church of St. Eustorgio. All of Italy is more or less of a 
boneyard, and one is shown enough bones of the Apostles to 
make a hundred disciples instead of twelve — but perhaps there 
was more to men then than in our day. 

The ferocious-looking Castello that the Dukes of Sforza 
built as a bulwark against their enemies, is now half ruin, half 
museum, and still covers so much ground and looks so gloomy 
and tragic it must have been, even in its days of splendor, a 
dismal home for the lovely Visconti beauties. Doubtlessly 
they would have found the Public Gardens more to their liking, 
for they make today the finest park in all Italy, and a very 
showy pleasure ground for fashion's parade. The poor and 
sick are also well provided for in Milan, and the Ospedale 
Maggiore is one of the largest and best equipped hospitals in 
existence. 

Here too is the far-famed Opera House of La Scala, that 
has a record of more great singers' triumphs than any other 
house in the world. There are over a hundred musicians in the 
orchestra, and with its six proud tiers of boxes and seats for 
thirty-six hundred people, a performance at La Scala makes an 
evening never to be forgotten. 

Verdi, the composer, as a boy, was refused admittance to 
the Conservatory in Milan on the ground of his giving no 
promise of being a good enough musician. Just before the 
great master died here in 1901, he founded a "Home of Rest" 
for poor musicians, remembering well the time his first wife 
died from lack of food, on the eve of his triumph with "II 
Trovatore." Seeing his tomb here one knows his famous 



A GLIMPSE OF MILAN 



89 



song, "I Sigh to Rest Me," was heard beyond the grave. His 
effects are now being gathered together to form the nucleus of 
a Verdi Museum. 

An electric car goes out in an hour to Monza, in whose 
old Cathedral, from the thirteenth century, the German rulers 
of Italy were crowned. The Empress Theodolinda began it in 
590 and her quaint old crown and cross are still preserved in 
the treasury, but the wonderful thing to see in the Cathedral is 
the iron crown of Lombardy. It contains inside a little iron 
band made from a nail that pierced the Lord's body on 
the cross and was 
brought from Pales- 
tine by St. Helena, 
the mother of Con- 
stantine, and con- 
sequently is con- 
sidered the very 
holiest of holies. 

Before it is 
shown one pays the 
verger a dollar, and ^"^ ^^°^ ^'^^^^ °^ lombardy 

then after an anxious waiting all the candles in the chapel are 
lighted; another wait and in comes a priest in scarlet robes and 
lace, attended by a boy carrying the incense, and after a prayer 
he opens a little door under the great cross on the altar. This 
flies open to reveal an iron safe to be unlocked by seven differ- 
ent keys ! Then more prayers and incense followed by an 
intense silence and out comes a little yellow cushion on which 
is the most precious crown in the world. Charlemagne wore 
it in 800, A. D., and Napoleon, who had such a variety of 
crowns in his collection, obtained it for his coronation here in 
1805. It is of gold engraved with flowers and inlaid with tiny 
blue and green vines, while the old rubies, amethysts, and 




90 RAMBLES ABROAD 

sapphires are encrusted in various designs. It is not dazzlingly 
beautiful or brilliant, but it is that holy nail in the inner rim 
that makes the iron crown of Lombardy worth more than any 
other richly jeweled one. 

King Humbert was driving in an open carriage from the 
summer palace at Monza when he was so cruelly assassinated 
in 1900, and a little chapel is now being erected to mark the 
scene of the tragedy that cast a gloom over all Italy. It is 
customary at royal funerals, to have the crown and scepter 
follow the coffin on a pillow, but the priests objected to the 
iron crown of Lombardy going through the streets in his funeral 
procession, arguing it was too sacred a relic for the public 
gaze, while the present King, Humbert's son, declared it is not 
only a church relic, but part of the royal paraphernalia, and so 
it was brought out under protest, but the question remains un- 
answered: "Does it belong to the church or to the state?" 



A GLIMPSE OF VIENNA 



A Glimpse of Vienna 

RICHTER thought people could not have a better time in 
Paradise than in Vienna. A boulevard nearly seventy 
feet wide circles the city like a loop, and consists of 
three streets abreast, separated by two car tracks, while on the 
outer side of these a broad bridle-path is shaded by two rows 
of trees. This Ringstrasse has more fine modern buildings on 
it than any other one street in Europe, for since the change of 
government in 1848, Vienna has spared no expense for em- 
bellishment, and the great public buildings are spread over a 
wide space of ground which gives them an approach that adds 
much to their appearance, and could Marcus Aurelius see this 
city, so changed from the Roman settlement that he died in 
here in 130, he would never believe that the days of miracles 
are over. 

It is the home of princes and also the city of Jews, for the 
wealth of the former is only to be exceeded by the riches of 
the latter. The Jews still have their own quarter, although 
the old Ghetto to which they were obliged to return by night- 
fall, is today a relic of the past. They are spreading rapidly 
now all through the city; they entirely control the banking bus- 
iness and their names hang over the best shops and largest 
manufactories, while the Rothchilds and other prominent 
Hebrew families are among Vienna's most notable citizens. 

The landmark from which all distances are calculated, is 
the venerable old church of St. Stephen in the center of the 
town. It was begun in 1300, is the coronation church of 
Austria, and its old steeple rises nearly five hundred feet into 
the air and is visible from all parts of town. From the difficulty 

[93] 



94 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



one has stumbling about to see the interior, it is easy to believe 
it is indeed a church of the dark ages, for no light has pene- 
trated yet into the building. Here Eugene of Savoy is buried, 
the warrior who helped Marlborough win the great battle of 
Blenheim, and in his vast Belvedere palace he collected such 
fine paintings that they became the nucleus of the collection in 

the Art Museum, 
The Lichtenstein 
family, one of the 
most influential in 
Vienna, also have a 
highly adorned 
chapel in St. Ste- 
phen's, and so fam- 
ous is their home 
that the present 
Prince allows stran- 
gers to go through 
on certain days to 
see their rare paint- 
ings. This old 
church was used for 
many hundred years 
as the Imperial Vault 

ST. STEPHENS-VIENNA ^ntil ^^q church Of 

the Capuchin was chosen, and in the latter today, an old 
Capuchin monk points out among others in the dark crypt 
below, the bronze caskets of Maria Theresa and her husband; 
the ill-fated Emperor Maximilian of Mexico; the shallow wife 
of Napoleon, Marie Louise, and her unlucky boy, the King of 
Rome; Crown Prince Rudolph and his mother, the last unfor- 
tunate Hapsburg to be laid there, the Empress Elizabeth, who 
was assassinated in 1898. 




A GLIMPSE OF VIENNA 



95 



The Karlkirche was erected by Charles VI. at the cessation 
of the plague in 1716, and the beautiful Votive Kirche this 
Emperor Francis Joseph decided to build after his life was 
spared from an assassin's dagger. It resembles the Cologne 
Cathedral, and standing quite apart, its beauty is well seen 
from all sides. 

A square or two farther on comes the imposing Rathhaus, 
a town hall of such extraordinary proportions that besides the 
municipal offices, it contains a large museum where Vienna's 
great musicians' manuscripts, pianos and other possessions are 
displayed. There, 
too, are the paint- 
ings of "Mozart's 
Last Hours, ' ' ' ' Schu- 
bert Among His 
Friends," and many 
other great works. 
One sees a few of 
the Empress Maria 
Theresa's personal 
belongings; trophies 
captured from the Turks when they were driven from the city; 
and other relics of Vienna's generals and famous men and 
women. The building alone cost seven millions. 

The Houses of Parliament with their splendid bronze 
chariots on top, have for rivals the two great Museums, one of 
natural, the other of art history. They make a sumptuous 
home for such a collection, for the buildings themselves are 
adorned with different colored marbles and frescoed by artists 
of the highest ability. Although the collection of pictures is 
large, there are only a few masterpieces, Durer's "Trinity" 
ranking first. Nevertheless there are fine Velasquez portraits 
of hoop-skirted, high-ruffled Infantas of Spain, priceless Van 




PARLIAMENT BUILDING 



96 RAMBLES ABROAD 

Dykes, Rembrandts and Titians, and that picture of "Napoleon 
Crossing the Alps" that every schoolboy knows. The collec- 
lection of armor is the most complete in the world, for it not 
only gives specimens from all ages, but also the very coats of 
mail, helmets and weapons used by famous fighters. 

The cameos are not the least among the treasures, but the 
object which challenges all interest is a jeweled bouquet given 
by Maria Theresa to her husband, Francis I. It stands about a 
foot high, and every flower is made of precious stones. There 
are little daisies of diamonds, different roses of pink topaz, 
and some of yellow; red roses of garnets, forget-me-nots of 
turquoise, violets made of amethysts, etc., while a jeweled 
butterfly rests on a white enameled edelweiss and a beetle walks 
over a glistening anemone. It is a most brilliant collection of 
jewels, and the flowers are so dexterously made, and clustered 
so nicely together, it was a unique present, fit indeed for a 
king. Here too is the marvelous salt-cellar that Benvenuto 
Cellini, the prince of goldsmiths, made for Francois I. of France. 
It represents a sea of gold, over which Neptune, a large gold 
figure with trident in hand, presides, while a little exquisitely 
embossed gold boat rides on the waves and holds the salt. 
On the pedestal all sorts of sea serpents are engraved, every 
detail being minutely carried out to the wonder of all ages. 

If in the Museum one does not have his fill of paintings, 
the Academy is rich in works of all schools. It is both museum 
and art school, and a very appropriate place for students to 
work among these old masters. The Treasury makes one feel 
some one must have waved a magic wand. It is the part of 
the palace where the dazzling paraphernalia of the Austrian 
empire is exhibited. The Emperor's crown has pearls and 
rubies as large as hazelnuts, and one of the largest sapphires 
in the world on the top. The collection of Hapsburg jewels 
here is quite unequaled. Maria Theresa's enormous emeralds 



A GLIMPSE OF VIENNA 97 

are displayed, mounted in a necklace, diadem, watch and cor- 
sage; the celebrated Tuscan pearls, mammoth diamonds, in- 
cluding the great Florentine, and the bridal rubies in a tiara, 
girdle, necklace, ear-rings, corsage and watch of Marie An- 
toinette of France, have glistened in their unrivaled beauty 
for many years. The diamond crown of the late Empress 
Elizabeth must have been too weighty for such a small head, 
but its design in great pearls and diamonds alone, was a fit 
ornament for any one as beautiful as the Empress. Nearby is 
all the insignia of Napoleon's coronation as King of Italy, and 
one sees also the regalia of that vanished realm, the Holy 
Roman Empire. Charlemagne wore its crown in 800; in a case 
is kept his sword, the spear which is believed to have been 
in the Lord's side, also the jeweled book of the Gospels that 
was buried with Charlemagne in Aix-la-Chapelle, and years 
afterward dug up. The other holy relics are rather amusing; 
a piece of the Holy Cross, of the Manger, of the tablecloth 
used at the Last Supper, a bone of St. Anne, tooth of John 
the Baptist, and links from the fetters that bound Peter, Paul 
and John. 

The bronze monument of Maria Theresa that stands in the 
large square between the two art buildings, is well worthy of 
its fame. The great Empress, "a woman with a heart of a 
king," and the highest sense of justice for all, sits with one 
hand on that scepter which, to hold fast, she had to undergo so 
many wars with other, nations, while the other hand is extended 
in greeting to every passerby. Her reign (1740-80) was the 
glory of Austria, and the clever ministers of her time are 
grouped about her on this monument, while Gltjck, who gave 
her children piano lessons, stands near Haydn with Mozart by 
the hand. All Maria Theresa's large family were talented; 
one sees their paintings on the castle walls of Schonbrunn, and 
the young Mozart used to go to court to play duets with little 



98 RAMBLES ABROAD 

Miss Marie Antoinette to the approval of the great Mother 
Empress. She was an extraordinary personage, a practical 
business woman, with rare executive ability, and had, in addi- 
tion to her sound common sense, a beauty and grace that won 
over many a recruit to her caase. She was first and last an 
aristocrat, and was always surrounded by such an air of majesty 
no one could ever doubt, when she appeared, if it were the 
sovereign or not. 

Several of her sixteen children were equally celebrated. 
Everyone knows the fate of Marie Antoinette in France, and 
another daughter, Marie Caroline, was driven from her throne 
in Naples by Napoleon. The Empress' son, Joseph II., was 
quite the opposite of his mother, and loved to mingle incognito 
with the people, studying their ways. He conceived, as heir 
to the throne, many improvements for their happiness when 
he should be king, but had everything in his life go wrong, 
from the untimely death of his first beloved wife to his en- 
forced marriage with the second, and after a disappointing 
reign of ten years, he desired these words on his tomb: 



'Here rests a prince whose intentions were pure, but who 
was so unfortunate as to see all his plans miscarry." 



It was he who gave the Prater, Vienna's fine park, to the 
people. In early reigns it had been a shooting-box, but no 
longer wishing to restrict it to royalty only, Joseph threw it 
open to all. Now, with the Prater, Stadtpark, Volks and Hof- 
garten, and other pleasure grounds, there is outdoor life in 
Vienna, bands and beer for rich and poor. Wienerwurst means 
sausage of Wien, the German name for Vienna, and there are 
cafes enough to give everyone the celebrated Vienna rolls, 
coffee, chocolate or Wienerwurst five times a day. Who does 
not know Vienna is the home of Strauss' magic orchestra? and 




BRONZE MONUMENT OF MARIA THERESA 



CofC. 



A GLIMPSE OF VIENNA 



101 



the "Wiener Blut," "Beautiful Blue Danube," and other airs 
dear to the heart of the Viennese are heard at every turn. 

This has been the home of so many favorite musicians that 
many of their possessions have been left in their houses and 
they have been opened to sightseers. Thus, the Beethoven, 
the Handel and the Wagner Museums are frequently visited, 
and out in the Central Cemetery lie Mozart, Beethoven, Schu- 




MONUMENT OF MARIE CHRISTINE, hy CANOVA 

bert, Strauss, Brahms, Millocker and many other famous com- 
posers. 

Maria Theresa's favorite daughter, Marie Christine, has 
the world-renowned Canova monument in the Augustiner 
Kirche. The marble figure of Virtue veiled, carries an urn 
with the Archduchess' ashes, followed by Goodness helping an 
old man, and the carving is so exquisitely beautiful it was 
thought worthy to be copied for the sculptor's own tomb in 



102 RAMBLES ABROAD 

Venice. In the Loretto chapel of this same church are kept 
the hearts of the various Hapsburgs. On a stone ledge stands 
a row of different-sized vases, for evidently some had bigger 
hearts than others, in more ways than one, but this barbarous 
custom of removing the heart is now no longer carried out. 

The royal palace is called the Hofburg. It is not merely 
one edifice, but a collection of buildings, so mammoth that it 
covers acre after acre of ground in the very center of the city. 
It is very old, but a modern addition has made the home life 
of the sovereign more comfortable, while the furnishings are 
so sumptuous, and it contains such paintings, art treasures, 
and has such vivid historical associations, that it ranks as one 
of the finest royal palaces in the world. In the Imperial Li- 
brary, which is part of the Hofburg, the old Psalter of Hilde- 
garde, wife of Charlemagne, is exhibited, with Tasso's "Jeru- 
salem Delivered," in his own handwriting, and many illuminated 
manuscripts and rare editions. 

The University of Vienna should not be missed by even 
the weary. The great quadrangle inside is two hundred and 
twelve by one hundred and fifty feet, and with forty-six arches 
leading from it to the beautiful cloisters, it makes a bewildering 
sight, while the nine courts give room enough for the six thou- 
sand students to come and go without crowding. The reading- 
rooms are vast in proportion, and every part of it is so well 
equipped, and the instruction is so excellent, that any one 
securing here a diploma goes forth into the world with good 
intellectual capital. 

The Royal Opera House and Royal Theatre are the pride 
of the Viennese, while the staff of the former numbers about 
seven hundred, and includes a dressmaking establishment, 
carpenter shop and scene-painting studio. The buildings are 
enormous, supplied with all the latest appliances for shifting 
the scenery by electricity and doing away with men in the flies. 



A GLIMPSE OF VIENNA 103 

There are innumerable exits, for the horror of the fire in 1881 
is not forgotten. The Emperor erected after it, on the site of 
that old theatre, a :^o-called House of Expiation, the rents of 
its apartments are given to charity, and every year, on the 
anniversary of the fire, a mass is held there for the souls of 
the victims. 

The fine pavements make driving doubly delightful, and it 
is a striking contrast to other cities to find all the street cabs 
with two horses, white ones far outnumbering all others. 
There is very little harness used, and the expert coachmen 
drive so fast one scarcely sees a carriage before it has dashed 
by. It is said the Viennese cabmen are so skillful they could 
drive around a ten cent piece. The street cars are electric, 
with an underground wire, and the system is so extensive that 
with these and the innumerable busses one can get anywhere 
without a cab. The fare is according to the distance; three 
cents take one a Sabbath Day's journey, and it is customary to 
give the conductor half a cent for his great trouble and kind- 
ness to collect your fare. In going about the streets the large 
number of statues to famous men is often remarked, and it 
must be that the Viennese feel as Longfellow, that 

"Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our own sublime. 
And departing, leave behind us 

Footprints on the sands of time." 

The money of Austria is at first so puzzling one envies the 
boy who said he could do sums easily because his mother was 
once bitten by an adder. The present currency consists of 
kronens (twenty-cent pieces) and hellers, a hundred of which 
make a krone. So far it appears simple, but upon entering 
one of the enticing shops in the Graben, to buy something you 
have seen marked ten in the windows, which you supposed to 



104 RAMBLES ABROAD 

be ten kronens and hence only two dollars, you find the shop- 
keeper is still using the old coinage and meant florins, so you 
must pay just twice as much or go without. This Graben took 
its name from the fact of its having been the moat of the old 
fortifications, but it is now the center of the shopping district, 
and at noon is thronged with fashionably dressed women. 

Nothing is given away in Vienna and prices are so high 
one readily understands why so many banks are needed, and 
only regrets that there are not enough for everyone to have 
one apiece. Leather goods reign supreme, and the novelties 
in the exclusive shops on the Ringstrasse beckon to one until 
the kronens jump out of one's pocket over the counter, never 
to return, and to resist temptation in these alluring windows, 
one should wear blinders like a horse. 

The Dienstmen on the corners make life in Germany a 
thing of rest, for they stand ready to run errands for any one 
for a mere pittance. They will buy opera tickets for you, 
carry bundles or post letters, and in fact all one need do is 
to open the window and express a wish, and an honest-faced, 
red-capped, old Dienstman does the rest. 

The Archduke Albert's palace, called the Albertina, con- 
tains two hundred thousand engravings, which include drawings 
by Raphael, Rembrandt, Durer, Rubens, and other great 
masters, as well as a collection of over fifty thousand books. 
Indeed, many palaces like this are open weekly for the advan- 
tage of the public, and the art treasures stored away in the 
homes of the aristocracy give Vienna a proud place among the 
great cities of the world. 



SCHONBRUNN 



Sckonbrunn 



DIRECTLY one says Schonbrunn, to whose mind does 
not come the picture of a delicate boy, who, fading 
away with the spring flowers, had such dreams of 
France reconquered, as only a Napoleon like himself could 
dream? Here in Schonbrunn "L'Aiglon," the King of Rome, 




THE CASTLE OF SCHONBRUNN, WITH GLORIETTE IN THE DISTANCE 

Napoleon Bonaparte's only heir, lived and died, for growing 
weaker day by day he used to sit looking out on the same 
Gloriette in the distance that is shown in the picture, but to 
him the view ended not there, for he always saw battle-fields 
beyond, where his father's fate should be avenged— his mighty 
father, the Eagle, who had flapped his broken wings in vain 
against the rock of St Helena, while the frail Eaglet was 

[107J 



108 RAMBLES ABROAD 

growing to be a man, and always in a few more weeks the young 
fellow would be strong enough to start, and always when the 
appointed time came the Eaglet was too weak to soar. 

Schonbrunn is to Vienna what Versailles is to Paris. In 
1619 it was a shooting-box for Emperor Matthias, and later 
Maria Theresa, who never went to any spot that she did not 
beautify, built the present castle. It is in a park of great magni- 
tude, through which wide avenues, bound by noble old trees, 
radiate in every direction. The rich foliage and flower-beds, the 
fountains and thirty-two marble statues here and there, and an 
old Roman ruin for picturesqueness are completed by a palm 
garden and menagerie that make the grounds a model for 
landscape gardening. The place is named for a beautiful 
fountain — schone brunnen — representing a woman resting, 
while water ripples out from a jug which she holds. Just 
inside the bronze entrance gates two old obelisks make a dig- 
nified watch-guard, while the Gloriette, a peristyle shown in 
the picture, was the joy of Maria Theresa's heart, and when 
dropsy would no longer permit her walking to the top, she had 
herself lifted by pulleys, that she might still have the extensive 
view, not only of Vienna but of miles beyond. 

The first painting of note in the palace is that of Rosa, of 
the old castle of Habichtsburg in Switzerland, the homestead 
that gave its name to the family of Hapsburg. A large por- 
trait of Maria Theresa, by Meytens, shows a pompous, opulent- 
looking personage, attired in expansive hoopskirts, with such 
brocade, lace and jewels, that, in the words of dear old Mr. 
Boffin, she must have been like his wife, the veriest "highflyer 
for fashion." 

Her dining-table went below through a trap-door, to get 
the next course, that the Empress' interviews with her minister, 
Kaunitz, might not be overheard by servants. Two great 
bronze statues of Hercules were her stoves. They are hollow, 



SCHONBRUNN 111 

and when filled with hot coals gave out heat with the 
same vigor that is always connected with anything Hercules 
did. 

On the walls of the attractive writing-room are the panels 
done by her royal children. Some are framed fan shape, some 
oval, or square, and being set into the wall, they make the 
room a little gem. The heads done by Marie Antoinette when 
she lived here in happy girlhood, oblivious of the awaiting 
guillotine in Paris, are unusually good. Her brother, Joseph 
II., was no amateur, while Marie Christine's family group, in 
water-colors, and the work of their father, Francis I., show 
how talented all members of a royal family may be. 

Another great painting shows the Empress founding the 
Order of St. Stephen, which she bestows on four nobles, and 
many an Austrian duke today is proud enough to have an 
ancestor who wore one of those decorations. There are also 
pictures of Joseph II. 's marriage to Isabel of Parma, that give 
the bride's entrance into Vienna, the church wedding and sup- 
per. The unsuspecting bridegroom thought she loved him 
full measure, and she was so good an actress and played her 
role so perfectly, Joseph never found out until mourning her 
early death, that she had long before given her heart to a 
suitor in her old home. 

Here came the conquering Napoleon in 1805, after his 
victory over the Austrians, and in the court-yard one morning, 
when he was about to review the troops, an anarchist rushed 
toward him, announcing his desire to kill such an oppressor, 
but he was promptly despatched before he could carry out his 
threat. Appreciating the beauty of the place, Napoleon re- 
turned to Schonbrunn in 1809, and occupied the very room 
where in 3832 his then unborn son was to die. Could he only 
have turned over the next page in the Judgment Book, he 
might have known then that discarding Josephine to marry 



112 RAMBLES ABROAD 

the Austrian Emperor's daughter, Marie Louise, was only for 
a vain glory that iwould mock him to the last. 

There is a Chinese room with walls of light blue silk, 
curiously designed, and a fetekin room where the wall panels 
are of costly rosewood, framing minature sketches from India 
and Persia, and a Gobelin room, the richest of all with its old 
chairs, designed to represent the products and sports of each 
month of the year. 

After Napoleon was sent to Elba, his second wife, Marie 
Louise, returned with her boy to her father in Vienna, and be- 
ing then in the land of her husband's enemy, she gave up her 
title of Empress of France and was given that of Duchess of 
Parma, and the boy ceasing to be called King of Rome, was 
acclaimed Duke of Reichstadt by his grandfather; thus the son 
of an Emperor of France was brought up an Austrian. 

Francis gave his daughter Schonbrunn for a residence, 
but finding life there too remote from the .festivities of the 
Vienna Congress that was tearing apart the kingdoms Napoleon 
had joined together, this shallow woman used to go into town 
to see the fetes given to celebrate his downfall. Even when 
he escaped from Elba for a last struggle in France, Marie 
Louise did not go back to Paris to join him, but lingered in 
Austria, where Count Neipperg made her days absorbingly 
pleasant. Loyalty is fine in theory, but often uncomfortable 
in practice, and why leave a castle in Austria perchance to 
lodge in a prison in France? So Napoleon had his Waterloo 
without wife or child, and after his death Marie Louise mar- 
ried Neipperg, who only had one eye, and perhaps in that way 
could see only her virtues. After he died she ventured into 
matrimony a third time, and chose the Count of Bombelles. 

The cradle that the city of Paris gave Napoleon and Marie 
Louise for their son, is on exhibition in the treasury in Vienna. 
It is entirely of silver-gilt, with a figure of Victory at the head' 



SCHONBRUNN 113 

holding a laurel leaf, and an eagle rests at the foot. The 
basket-shaped bed is of mother-of-pearl on which gold bees are 
fastened, and statuettes of Wisdom and Strength — but the 
latter went no farther with the boy than the cradle, and after 
years of hopeless longing to return to France, he passed away 
in this little room at Schonbrunn, looking at the same tapestry 
that was on its walls when his great father had slept there, and 
thus the King of Rome, the child of great promise, died in 
exile among his father's enemies. 

The present Emperor's brother, Maximilian of Mexico, 
spent many a day here with his wife Carlotta, and Crown 
Prince Rudolph brought thither his bride, Stephanie, but from 
the first they were so unsuited to each other, everyone knew it 
was only the beginning of the end, although the suicide of the 
Prince in 1889 made a tragic finale indeed. In one of the 
rooms a fascinating cousin of Francis Joseph was startled by 
the sudden appearance of her father in the garden below, and 
while leaning out of the window to talk with him she held a 
forbidden cigarette behind her, not realizing she had thus 
ignited her gown into the flames that quickly devoured her. 

Yet in spite of these dark shadows there is so much bright- 
ness and beauty at Schonbrunn that Francis Joseph spends 
some time here every summer. It is only three quarters of an 
hour's ride from Vienna, and it makes an ideal summer place 
where he can enjoy the cool of the country and still keep in 
touch with the affairs of town. 



BUDAPEST 



Budapest 



BUDA is on one side of the Danube, Pest on ihe other, 
and the bridges made the hyphen between, but recently 
the two became so welded together they rank as one 
city and the words are now written as one. 

The first thing one notices on arriving is the rapid driving 
of the fiacres. No automobiles are required for speed, for all 
one need do is to take a seat behind two horses, and before he 
has time to put up a prayer for the help of heaven, the desti- 
nation, however far it may be, is reached. The next thing 
noticeable is the clean streets. They are absolutely spotless, 
and armies of men with hose and brooms work like Trojans 
every minute of the day. The hose has no little timid stream 
like ours, but a mighty torrent of water rushes out as though 
a whole ocean were being emptied. Budapest is so immaculate 
one expects to see a broom on the coat of arms. 

The signs are another striking feature. Many of the shops 
have out on the front, large paintings of what they contain. 
For instance, a furniture store has without a highly-colored 
painting of a hospitable looking sofa, with a few polite chairs 
posed around it; a plumber pictures out for your gaze all the 
leaden pipes that turn to gold in his bill; the barber's picture 
shows a man so curled, combed and waxed that he would be 
out of place anywhere but in a bandbox; and a meat-shop dis- 
plays a painting of a ham, sausage, and that indefatigable 
chicken, that as a poulet roti is ever with us at table d'hote, 
the world over, until it is surprising travelers do not attempt 
a boycott. 

The exterior illustrations of a shop's contents must have 

[1191 



120 RAMBLES ABROAD 

originated from the difficulty the people have in understanding 
their own tongue. Hungarian is certainly the language in 
which to conceal one's thoughts, and it remains to be explained 
if they write their words upside down, or merely turn them 
wrong side out, for the Delphic oracle itself would have been 
puzzled to interpret them. Many of the private houses in ad- 
dition to the long, flat pillows laid on the sills in the winter to 
keep out the cold, also hang small fur rugs across the lower 
part of the window, which gives them a look of barbaric rich- 
ness. 

There is no night in Budapest. The evening and early 
morning are the second day. The cafes are so numerous house- 
keeping must be an easy task, as no family takes three meals 
a day at home. They congregate in the cafes, visiting with 
their friends while sipping the delicious ices and drinking cof- 
fee, and with the delights of the Hungarian orchestras and 
gypsy bands a Hungarian's leisure hours are as systematically 
spent at a restaurant, or sauntering along the fine promenade 
by the Danube, called Franz Joseph Quai, as his busy ones are 
■at his desk. Sulphur springs abound, people flock to the baths 
with the most rigid regularity, and who does not know the 
virtues of Hunyadi water? 

The women are absolutely independent in dress and show 
a fine disregard of the current fashion that is unusual in this 
day, when to be out of style makes one shunned like a leper. 
The soldiers all wear skin-tight trousers, very high black boots 
and fascinating caps with cockades and bushy tassels, while 
the nurses in very full skirts stopping at the knee, handker- 
chiefs over the head, and high black boots, saunter along, 
always carrying the baby in their strong arms, whom they 
cover with a finely embroidered coverlet, pinned in front to 
their own shoulders and dropping over the child. 

Budapest and Minneapolis are the flour providers of the 




rail 




BUDAPEST 123 

world. En route to the former one passes through miles and 
miles of wheat fields through which very large oxen draw the 
ploughs, and the monotony of this flat expanse extends from 
Budapest in all directions. Elevators are numerous and freight 
boats on the Danube load grain in bags all day long, while the 
nervous little passenger boats dart in and out among them in 
an important way, as impressed for time. Many of them go to 
Margaret Island a short distance above, which Archduke 
Joseph has given the people for a pleasure ground, and there 
parks, cafes, music and fun are accessible to all. 

There are now seven hundred and fifty thousand people in 
Budapest. For many years the Turks reigned here supreme, 
and at every hand one sees relics of their sovereignty, 
but since throwing off that yoke this city has made such aston- 
ishing strides, Chicago itself can scarcely show a better record 
of rapid progress. Loyalty to everything Hungarian comes 
first in every native heart. In their royal palace and other 
buildings they want materials from Hungary only, and their 
statues they demand by Hungarian sculptors. Such patriotism 
has made the place the beautiful spot it is today, and on every 
mail-box and other government possession, does one see the 
Austrian coat of arms? No, only the crown of Stephen, part 
of their own Hungarian regalia that is kept in their royal 
palace, and they love it all the more for its crooked cross on 
top, for the legend says no less a person than their own St. 
Stephen, who was no docile weakling, but a man of mighty 
rages like themselves, in a moment of anger bent the cross in 
his own holy hands, and thus it has always remained. 

Their kingdom forms part of the Austrian empire, but 
jealousy of Vienna is in every Hungarian heart, and they ex- 
pect to have the Emperor Francis Joseph spend quite as much 
time in the enormous palace they are ever beautifying for him, 
as he spends in the Hofburg in Vienna. The St. Stephen room 



124 RAMBLES ABROAD 

in this palace is moorish, with rich wall mosaics of the Kings 
of Hungary, and the view from the palace window, of the 
terrace below, of the "beautiful blue Danube" that is really 
beautiful even if it isn't blue, and of Pest just across, is so 
magnificent one wonders that Francis Joseph does not tarry 
here longer. 

The old citadel called the Blocksburg, crowning a hill, 
towers above and adds picturesqueness to the whole city, 
St. Matthias' church, where the Emperor and Empress Eliza- 
beth were crowned King and Queen of Hungary in 1867, is 
reached from below by a most artistic flight of steps, with long 
colonnades called bastei, from which people never tire gazing 
upon the panorama below. The fine suspension bridge, House 
of Parliament, Palace of Justice, Basilica, Rathhaus and splen- 
did Andrassy street, leading out to the Stadtwaldchen or park, 
are worthy any traveler's attention, while the Museum and 
Academy have pictures well in keeping with the Hungarian 
pride in them. The late Munkacsy, of course, is their leading 
modern painter. His palette and many of his pictures are 
shown in the Museum, and it is regrettable that Budapest 
could not also have had his best known work, the celebrated 
"Christ Before Pilate." The coloring of their artists is very 
rich, and all students will do well to keep abreast with Hun- 
garian art, for their modern paintings are quite as fine as any 
seen in Europe. 

The Opera is above criticism, no less a master than Liszt 
was once directory of the conservatory; Joachim, the great 
violinist, came from Hungary; Moritz Jokai was not the least 
of her writers, and so the list of famous men goes on without 
end. March 20th, 1904 was the tenth anniversary of the death of 
their greatest citizen, Louis Kossouth, the Moses who led them 
from darkness into their present light. Every building had a 
black flag or crape drapery. All Budapest was carrying 



BUDAPEST 125 

wreaths to his grave, and to every heart it was such a 
personal loss, one realized here the meaning of Ruskin's 
words: "It is better to be nobly remembered than to be 
nobly born." 



A GLIMPSE OF MUNICH 



A Glimpse of Munick 

^4X WILL make Munich such a city that no one can say 

I he has seen Germany if he has not seen Munich." 
Then Ludwig I. promptly carried out his word and 
reared buildings, and beautiful statues, and triumphal arches 
that still show what thought and expense he lavished upon 
them. Artists flocked to his court and he kept them all occu- 
pied carrying out his ideas, and whoever thinks of Munich 
today, that great paintings, big and little, merry and sad, do 
not come to mind? 

He commanded Schnorr to do ihose wonderful Niebelungen 
frescoes for the palace, and Stieler executed for him the ex- 
quisite porcelains of the beauties of the Bavarian court. Cor- 
nelius embellished his buildings with renowned decorations 
and Schwanthaler adorned them with imperishable marble. 

The Royal Palace is divided into three great parts. The 
oldest, called the Alte Residenz, contains rooms sumptuously 
fitted up in the style of the seventeenth century, and here one 
sees the Pope's rooms, so-called because Pius VI. occupied 
them for some time. They are furnished in a manner befitting 
the head of Christendom and are dazzlingly gorgeous. The 
Treasury contains among other things the Bavarian blue 
diamond, the great half black pearl of the Palatinate, and the 
Bohemian crown of the Winter King of Bohemia, Frederick 
V. In the Reiche Capelle are costly objects in gold and sil- 
ver, some the work of the master goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini, 
and a tiny little pocket altar exquisitely enameled, formerly in 
the possession of Mary Queen of Scots. 

A newer part of the palace is called the Festsaalbau, as 

[129] 



130 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



it contains a series of great festive halls. Here are the mural 
paintings from the Odyssey and in the card-rooms are hung 
the thirty-six portraits of beautiful women, the greatest work 
of Stieler. The frescoes and historical paintings add to the 
richness of these apartments, and in the throne-room are 
twelve gilded bronze statues over life-size, of the ancestors of 
the House of Wittelsbach, 

The part called the Konigsbau is now occupied by the 

Regent, and on the ground 
floor are the frescoes illus- 
trating the old Niebelungen 
legends, which are so famous 
no sightseer can afford to 
miss them. It was Ludwig 
I. who added so extensively 
to this palace, and then with 
a kingly grace he gave the 
new part for which he paid 
from his own privy purse, to 
the city of Munich. The peo- 
ple loved him for it, but when 
the fascinating Lola Montez, 
an actress, cast her charms 
over him, that was a very dif- 
ferent matter, and the honest 
old Bavarians, having no patience with such nonsense, vocifer- 
ously, insisted that she leave town, until the foolish old King felt 
he must suggest to her the pleasures of traveling. However, 
when he died in 1868, they overlooked his weaknesses, and re- 
membering only he had made Munich rank with the foremost cities 
of Europe, they buried him in a worthy tomb in the Basilica. 

Munich is different from other places. It has the advan- 
tages of a city, yet retains the quiet of a town, and there is so 




BEAUTY OF LUDWIG I.'S COURT, 
by STIELER 



A GLIMPSE OF MUNICH 



131 



little activity in the broad streets a blind man could cross 
safely without even his indefatigable dog. The frank, open- 
hearted Tyroleans in their old green felt hats, into which, like 
Yankee Doodle, they have stuck a feather, stroll along the side- 
walks, always gazing into art-store windows, and everyone 
has a "Guten Tag" and friendly feeling for everyone else. 
The weather-beaten old cabmen would not cheat any one out 
of a pfennig, and the trades 
people take down willingly 
everything in their shops 
to show, without even the 
least suggestion that you 
should buy; they tell you 
how Munich used to be 
when they were young, and 
all seem to have leisure to 
enjoy an old-time visit at 
any hour of the day. 

One never knows 
economy until he sees 
Germany. There is abso- 
lutely no waste; with the 
hausfrau thrift the clothes 
are patched and darned 
until they could be used as 
checker-boards, and when one sees these sturdy peasant women 
cleaning the streets and raking leaves in the parks, Hercules 
himself would have saluted their strength and endurance, but to 
watch them crushing stones for the road-bed makes one see 
the need of Woman's Rights in Germany! 

Munchen takes its name from the German for monks, 
because they formerly owned the land, but the monk has now 
given way to the soldier, for every other man is in shining 




LOLA MONTEZ 



132 RAMBLES ABROAD 

uniform, and the military bands play so entrancingly crowds 
always gather in the squares at noon to hear them, dreaming 
of the wonderful things they cannot do when the music is over. 

There is no place in the world where Wagner's operas are 
better given than in Munich, and even the most bored American 
who yawns when Wagner's name is mentioned could not be 
insensible to the beauty of such magnificent presentations. 
The singers live their parts, it is not acting, and they have 
such wonderful voices that no matter how high or with what 
force they sing, there is always a feeling that there is still 
more voice in reserve that could be called upon. The staging 
is sumptuous, the orchestra perfect, and the whole performance 
is so engrossing, it is a surprise at the end to discover that 
there were other people in the audience too for one completely 
loses his bearings and is carried along with the exquisite har- 
mony. 

The opera begins at six-thirty or seven and always ends 
by ten o'clock. Ices, fruits, and light refreshments are passed 
through the aisles between acts, so the palate may not be envious 
of the food for the soul. Even when the Court is present the 
audience is not a brilliant sight; of course, the uniforms add 
color, but the Bavarian women always look as if they had had 
last year's gown made over in the house by a sewing girl who 
missed her calling when she took up the needle. However, 
though the people may not understand dress, they do under- 
stand music, and insist upon the best, and at the end of each 
act their pent-up enthusiasm bursts forth into a veritable tornado 
of applause, and they clap, and stamp, and shout, and yell until 
one fears some of these stout, florid little gentlemen will have 
apoplexy, or turn inside out with sheer delight! 

The Hof and Prinz Regenten theatres are admirably ar- 
ranged buildings for such elaborate performances and all 
crowding is avoided. It is remarkable how few carriages are 



A GLIMPSE OF MUNICH 



133 



in line after an opera, and these sturdy music lovers trudge 
through the streets homeward, or try to hurry for a car, as 
best they can, for all Germans make haste slowly. A Wagner 
and a Mozart festival are to be given again this summer, and 
seats are always taken months in advance by people from all 
over the world, for it is an annual treat greatly anticipated. 

The Bavarian Museum awakens interest in the most blase 
traveler. The building itself is new, and every room is in the 




OPERA HOUSE— MUNICH 



Style of a different period, with the works of that time suitably 
arranged in it, and the furniture is so representative, decorators 
and people wishing to furnish artistic houses would do well to 
come here to see such a collection. Costumes from early days 
are also on exhibition. King Ludwig's resplendent light blue 
velvet bed with coverlet and curtains on which the gold em- 
broidery stands an inch above the background, old (carved 



134 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



ivories, a few of Bismarck's possessions, and Schiller's writing- 
table are conspicious 
among the relics. 

The Old and New 
Pinakothek are the 
great unrivaled gal- 
leries filled with 
paintings well known 
by their copies to 
every child in school, 
the Glyptinhek con- 
tains the old statuary, 
and the large Maximilianeum has splendid historical pictures 
illustrating the lives of many heroes. The Ruhmeshalle is the 
hall of fame where Munich's great men are immortalized in 
marble, and the mammoth bronze statue of Bavaria stands out 




OLD PINAKOTHEK— MUNICH 




MAXIMILIANEUM— MUNICH 



A GLIMPSE OF MUNICH 137 

in front, keeping, with the lion beside her, a never-ending 
watch over the town. At the end of Ludwigstrasse is the 
Siegesthor, a triumphal arch erected by Ludwig I. to the 
Bavarian army, and on top is another figure of Bavaria drawn 
by great bronze lions. The new Rathhaus in Gothic style has 
fine carving on the exterior, and great paintings in the interior, 
while the municipal offices are unusually rich in their appoint- 
ments, and the Rathskeller below, intended for the city officials, 
is patronized by hundreds of other hungry and thirsty mortals. 
The Palace of Justice too is worthy of its star in the guide- 
books. 

Munich does not lack for churches. In the Ludwigkirche 
are Cornelius' best frescoes, and in the Frauenkirche old Lud- 
wig the Bavarian is pompously interred, for Munich is proud 
to think one of her own once reigned over the Holy Roman 
Empire, even though he had such epithets as the "foolish wise 
one," and the "dallying eager one." Everyone stops too in 
St. Michael's to see the resting place of Empress Josephine's 
son, Eugene Beauharnais, who was buried here because he had 
married the daughter of the King of Bavaria, and nearby lies 
Ludwig II., the castle builder, who took his 0\vn life in 1886. 
His brother Otto, who succeeded him, has always been too 
insane to reign; though King in name, he is strictly guarded, 
and his uncle, the beloved old Regent Luitpold, presides over 
the Kingdom of Bavaria in his place. He is now eighty-five 
years old, but has a son, a grandson, and a great-grandson 
living, so after King Otto's death there will be no anxiety about 
the royal succession as in so many other countries. The 
Regent, of course, moved in the royal palace, but his son and 
heir, Prince Ludwig and his wife, occupy the Wittelsbach 
Palace, a large red brick building several blocks distant. 

When Napoleon stayed in the Alte Residenz, he found the 
State bed too big and uncomfortable for real rest, and sent for 



138 RAMBLES ABROAD 

his own camp cot in preference. This is very descriptive of 
the size of this lofty piece of furniture, for Napoleon had tried, 
and had been able to sleep in almost every other state bed in 
Europe. In the midst of the royal carriages that make such a 
bewildering sight, is the coach he used during his stay, richly 
painted and gilded, but undoubtedly had King Ludwig II. 's 
graceful little blue velvet sleigh with the gold embroidery and 
the ermine robe then been in existence, the mighty Conqueror 
would have tried that also. 

Brewing beer is not the least among Munich's arts, and 
after you take a stein to the pump in the Hofbrauhaus, wash it 
and hand it over the counter to be filled, you taste the best beer 
in the world, and many a German motto says: "If any one has 
not sat in a Munich v/ine cellar with a glass full of beer, he 
cannot know what a good thing God has given to the Bava- 
rians." The beer-gardens are too numerous to mention; there 
the people congregate night after night, quietly drinking their 
pure beer, discussing the latest paintings and hearing selections 
from grand opera, played as only German souls can interpret 
them, and such a treat is within reach of all. 

Their park, the English Garden, may not have expensive 
flower-beds, but it has abundant foliage, left just as Nature 
planned, with no "keep ofif the grass" signs, and there are lakes 
to row on, and merry-go-rounds for the children, and beer- 
gardens to refresh the weary walkers through such a rural spot. 
When birds sing, the people hear them, for the Tyrolese have 
not grown tired yet of such a commonplace thing as the sweet 
song of a bird, and when they find a wild flower, it has a mean- 
ing for them, for 



"There was never mystery 

But 'tis figured in the flowers, 
Was never secret history 

But birds tell it in the bowers," 



A GLIMPSE OF MUNICH 139 

and they would all have agreed with Emerson, that when Nero 
advertised for a new luxury, he should have taken a walk 
through a wood. 

Sentiment never grows old-fashioned in Bavaria; unchang- 
ing loyalty to a friend is more than in their creed, it becomes 
a part of their life. Indeed there is an indescribable something 
about these honest, unpretentious people that attracts one to 
them, and any one who has really known Munich must have 
ever after a love for it lingering in the memory, just as the sea 
shells always sing of the sea. 



ART IN MUNICH 



Art in Munick 



ALL roads in Munich lead to a gallery, and art reigns 

AA supreme. Indeed it is one of the great art centers of 

Europe, and there are pictures to the right of one and 

pictures to the left of one, while every other shop has copies 

of the works in the galleries until the subjects become well 

known even to those who have eyes but see not. 

The prince and the peasant, the jovial cabman and the bare- 
headed .maid stand together before an artist's work and 
discuss its merits from all 
points of view; and the 
masses are so familiar with 
the great paintings, each 
one feels he has a share in 
them, and swells with pride 
when any one praises them. 
It is amazing to see them 
linger before a window 
puzzled to decide which to 
buy — if they had the money! 

Pinakothek is the Greek 
word for repository of art, 
and in the Old Pinakothek 
are kept the old master- 
pieces. Probably the most 
popular subject is Murillo's 
"Beggar Boys," but Durer's 
himself, the famous Rubens, with a number of Carlo Dolci's, 
Titian's, Raphael's, and Rembrandt's make the gallery, in 

[1431 




ALBRECHT DURER, by HIMSELF 



'Apostlets" and the head of 



144 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



spite of the disputable Corregios, a veritable treasure house 
of art. 

In the new Pinakothek are the modern works and here, of 
course, the German school is shown to its best advantage. The 
Kaulbachs, young and old, are from Munich, and their wonder- 
ful pictures are in every room, from the great "Destruction of 
Jerusalem" of William Kaulbach, down to the lovable children 
by Herman, the branch in which he excelled. One of the ac- 
companying illustrations is his "Hermit," where some little 

tots have wandered 
to the door of a re- 
cluse, but are too 
amazed at the 
shrieks of a bird to 
venture any further 
in that direction! 
The natural expres- 
sion he gets on a 
child's face has en- 
deared him to every- 
one in Munich. 

Lenbach, who 
died in May, 1904, 
was their greatest portrait painter, and who does not know 
his "Bismarck," the man of blood and iron? There was 
once an artist who told his sitter that in doing a portrait 
he tried to have the face express all the incidents of the 
life, whereupon the man quickly exclaimed: "Oh, don't 
paint in the lie I once told my mother!" This is the kind 
of work Lenbach did, and it is astonishing how with a 
few dark colors, in which the browns usually predominate, 
he could get a likeness that tells a whole life story. He 
differed from most artists in preferring to work at night, and 







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THE HERMIT, by HERMAN RAULEACH 




BISMARCK, by LENBACH 



ART IN MUNICH 



147 



in his studio there were many electric lights arranged for 
carrying on the work after daylight. He lived in a most artistic 
Italian villa here, filled with curios, and his studio was formerly 
opened to visitors, but during his long illness it was closed and 
many then realized the painting days of the far-famed Franz 
von Lenbach were over. 

Defregger paints scenes from the Tyrol that would put 
any pessimist in a good humor. He was a Tyroler himself, 
and first drew a 
bank-note so per- 
fectly that the vil- 
lagers declared the 
boy should have a 
chance at art, and 
from that day he 
walked forth into 
fame. His villa here 
shows the money 
that can be made by 
painting— IF ONE 
IS A DEFREG- 
GER. The accom- 
panying pictures are 
two of his works. 
One, "The Sick 
Dog," is his latest, and in such favor all Munich is carrying 
home copies of it. You see the children have bethought 
them to carry their pet to the animal doctor, and in answer 
to the little girl's ring, the angry face of the physician peers 
through the door pane and the small boy who sees it, is speech- 
less with terror, knowing there is trouble ahead, but the little 
mother thinks only of the doggy which she wraps up with 
anxious care, lest he take cold before the doctor can relieve him. 




THE SICK DOG, by DEFREGGER 



148 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



The other Defregger called "The Courting," shows that a 
timid youth has brought his father for support, to go before 
to prepare the way, for his own strength is so fast oozing 
away that all he can do is to clutch awkwardly the little 
bouquet. The girl's mother rises hospitably at their entrance, 
but the beloved one only giggles and takes it as a huge joke, 
while her sisters are much entertained by such a pleasant 
diversion. 




THE COURTING, by DEFREGGER 



Grutzner's merry old monks always come in for their share 
of admiration; in Makart's "Gifts of Earth and Water," one 
sees color running riot, and his rich reds make his pictures 
entirely different from other artists. Stuck is the man for 
faddists, and his conceptions are so wierd, so bizarre and 
terrible, one cannot help thinking he must have had some 
ghastly dreams. His "Sin" in the New Pinakothek represents 



ART IN MUNICH 149 

a woman with eyes that burn and glow, her black hair draped 
about her adds to the intensity of her expression, and a great 
serpent coiled over her shoulder completes a picture that is as 
strikingly wonderful as it is repulsive. Many pictures have 
been taken from the walls for the St. Louis Exposition, and 
though one misses them here like absent friends, it is grati- 
fying to. know Munich added her quota to the German exhibit. 

The Academy is one of the best places in the world to 
receive instruction, and art schools are legion. In the Crystal 
Palace an annual exhibition is held, while the Artists' Associa- 
tion has now a permanent display in its quarters in the old 
museum. The Secessionists too are not to be outdone, and 
yearly display their progress in such impressionistic marvels 
one is reminded of the would-be art critic, who, wanting to 
say something and not knowing if the canvas before him was 
a landscape, figure, or marine, exclaimed: "What a delicious 
bit," a compliment vague enough to fit any subject. 

Piloty, the great historical painter, lived here too, and his 
"Thusnelda in the Triumphal Procession of the Emperor 
Germanicus," and "Seni Before the Corpse of Wallenstein" 
are two of Munich's most celebrated pictures, while his "Queen 
Elizabeth" in the Maximilianeum is almost as good as a per- 
sonal encounter with the Virgin Queen. In this building there 
is a feast of great subjects: Richter's "Pyramid Builders," 
Schwoiser's "Henry IV. at Canossa," Kaulbach's "Coronation 
of Charlemagne," Schnorr's "Luther and the Diet of Worms," 
Kotzebue's "Peter the Great," and a dozen others. 

Cornelius, by his frescoes, gave the impetus to Munich art, 
Schwanthaler helped it forward and the Bavarian electors and 
kings have been from early times the patron of artists, as their 
works in the royal palace indicate, for here the Niebelungen 
decorations by Schnorr, and Stieler's Bavarian court beauties 
on porcelain, once seen are never forgotten. 



150 RAMBLES ABROAD 

Olive Shreiner tells of a painter who used a color that no 
one else could mix and many artists' hearts were filled with 
envy at the wonderful red their rival had found, so that at his 
death all flocked to his rooms to discover his secret, and lo, 
on his breast was a bleeding wound and they went away in 
silence, for they realized that he had been painting with his 
own life's blood. That is the case with all masterpieces, for 
the artists put into them the best part of their lives, and no 
one knows the cost but themselves. 



THE CASTLES OF THE MAD KING 
OF BAVARIA 



Tke Castles of tke Mad King 
of Bavaria 



WHEN Jack reached the top of the beanstalk he could 
not have been more surprised than the mountain 
climber in Bavaria, when he suddenly comes upon 
King Ludwig's palaces. They are only a few hours distant 
from Munich and as their 
fame is spreading abroad 
more travelers are visiting 
them every year, for their 
splendor rivals that of Alad- 
din's magic abode. 

Ludwig II. came to the 
throne in 1864 when only 
eighteen — a victim of envi- 
ronment and heredity. His 
wonderful beauty delighted 
the simple peasants, but 
from the first he had views 
that troubled his ministers. 
His education, unwhole- 
some and unsympathetic, 
under a French governess, was entirely unsuited to his tem- 
perament, and coming later from the twilight of seclusion into 
the dazzling blaze of royal glory, he made money disappear 
as in a conjuring trick. 

His ancestors were the famous Wittelsbach heroes of whom 
so many romantic tales are told that from boyhood he was 

[153] 




KING LUDWIG II. OF BAVARIA 



154 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



instilled with the idea that knights commanded and vassals 
obeyed. One day he was found strangling his younger 
brother, and when the governess told him he might have 
killed the little fellow, he calmly announced: "He dared to 
resist my will and deserves death!" He had the greatest 
horror of a homely face and would turn away in terror and in 
many other little ways his eccentricities became so marked 
that even in childhood he must have been at times demented. 




LINDERHOF 



When a young man he paid court to the daughter of the 
Czar Nicholas of Russia, but later his engagement was 
announced to the Princess Sophia Charlotte, daughter of Duke 
Maximilian of Bavaria. The wedding day was near, the state 
carriages for the bride and groom were finished, even the 
medals were ordered on which were the faces of the King and 
future Queen, when suddenly in the midst of the preparations, 
the engagement was broken, and the Princess refused to 
discuss the subject even with her own family. Some think 



CASTLES OP THE MAD KING OF BAVARIA 155 



Ludwig discovered that she was in love with someone else 
and broke it himself, while others believe the Princess found 
the King's fantastic ideas too peculiar for her taste. Later 
she married the Duke d Alencon and became a social leader' in 
Paris, but died under particularly tragic circumstances, as she 
was burned to death there in the Charity Bazaar in 1896. 

After that broken engagement, Ludwig' avoided society 
and preferred to live in the 
past with his ideal, Marie 
Antoinette, than in the 
present with any living 
woman. With his love of 
luxury and exquisite taste 
he kept hundreds of work- 
ing-men busy carrying out 
his plans. The Castle of 
Linderhof near Oberam- 
magau is copied after 
Marie Antoinette's Petit 
Trianon at Versailles, but 
the copy far excels the 
original, and its situation 
nestling down among the 
surrounding mountains, is 
most picturesque. The 
rooms are small and one notices in all of Ludwig's palaces 
there are almost no accommodations made for guests. The 
King was of a dreamy disposition, and preferred to be alone. 
The keynote of his life lies in this remark. When a child he 
was asked one day if he was not lonely? "Oh, no," he re- 
plied, "I think of lots of things and am quite happy!" 

In front of this little castle there is a beautifully laid out 
terrace which leads to the temple of Venus, and beyond one 




DUCHESS D' ALENCON 
engaged to King Ludwig; she was burned to 
death in the fire at the Paris Bazaar 



156 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



sees the snow-capped mountains of the Bavarian Tyrol. The 
Mecca for all tourists at Linderhof, however, is the blue grotto 
somewhat similar to the one at Capri, It is lighted artificially, 
and on entering the cave the blue is so dazzling, one could 
be easily deceived and think the walls were of real rock, and 
not merely cement and imitation — a counterfeit of Nature by 
human hands. On this little lake is the King's swan-boat, in 
which arrayed as Lohengrin he drifted about listening to the 



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LINDERHOF 



playful little waterfalls or looking at the painting that hangs 
on the opposite side. If any one doubts King Ludwig's 
insanity let him look at the grotto of Linderhof and fancy a 
sane man, dressed as Lohengrin, riding for hours at a time, on 
an artificial lake in a swan-boat moved by machinery! 

On the grounds there are numerous fountains, statues and 
arbors, and a Tiirkish kiosk stands a little distance from the 
castle. There, after dinner, this monarch loved to repair, and 



CASTLES OF THE MAD KING OF BAVARIA 157 

donning a Turkish costume, he would lounge on the light blue 
satin couches, smoking in true oriental fashion. If a guest 
were present he was expected to do likewise, and there, in the 
one little room, they remained for hours, watching the bronze 
peacocks open and shut, at the King's pleasure, their strange-: 
looking wings of colored glass. 




TERRACE AT I.INDERHOF 



All the rooms of Linderhof are furnished in French style, 
for Louis XIV. and Louis XV. were Ludwig's models, and he 
was always eager to imitate their apartments. One of the 
most attractive is in the form of a circle, with the wall panels 
of light blue satin, embroidered in gold thread, and the gold 
embroidery on the satin chairs stands out an inch from the 
background. The fine portraits are noted people of the French 
court. The Gobelin room is so called on account of its tapestry 



158 



RAMBLES ABROAD 




KIOSK AT LINDERHOF 



furnishings, and the work on the doors and ceiling is so heavily 
gilded, it makes one of the showiest rooms in the castle. 

The King's most 
intimate friend of 
flesh and blood was 
Richard Wagner, for 
in the great musician 
he saw some one 
capable of carrying 
out his dreams of 
chivalry. Ludwig 
was in Paris the first 
night Lohengrin was 
given, and from that 
time he became 
Wagner's royal patron. But the Bavarians grew jealous of 
his influence over the King, and the feeling against the musician 
eventually rose so high, Wagner was obliged to leave Munich. 
When the Auditorium at Bayreuth was erected, Wagner in- 
tended that the Niebelungen Lied should be produced there only, 
but after he lost Ludwig's favor needing more money, he was 
obliged to sell these 
operas, and therefore 
they can now be 
given in various 
cities. 

At the time of 
the trouble between 
Prussia and Austria, 
the Bavarians took 
sides with the latter 
and were of course 
deieated. lohengrin room at neuschwanstein 




CASTLES OF THE MAD KING OF BAVARIA 159 

Excitement throughout Bavaria was intense, and one 
would naturally have supposed the King's anxiety to be 
the greatest, but when the messengers brought word to him 
that his city of Nurnberg had been taken, they found him 
dressed as Tristan, ready to rehearse "Tristan and Isolde," 
and it really seemed to the distracted Bavarians that music was 
more important in the King's mind than affairs of state. 




LIVING-ROOM AT NEUSCHWANSTEIN 



The London "Punch" brought out at this time the follow- 
ing rhyme: 

"There was a young King of Bavaria 
Who played on his fiddle an aria, 
He called for his valet 
And then for a ballet, 
This wonderful King of Bavaria." 

In an erratic way he would suddenly order an opera to be 
given, and always wished to be alone in the theatre, but it is still 



160 RAMBLES ABROAD 

a question if he appreciated Wagner's music, or if it were the 
romantic stories and elaborate stage settings of the operas that 
appealed to him. 

His favorite color was blue, and his magnificent light blue 
velvet bed in the Museum at Munich is always a delight to the 
sightseer. There is only one bedroom in Linderhof, and the 
bed draperies are in blue velvet embroidered in gold thread, while 
the heavy railing which separates the end of the room for the 
great bedstead, is also highly gilded. The articles on the toilet- 
table are solid gold — worth a king's ransom. However, the King 
spent more and more time alone; although always majestic, 
there appeared to be a mist of loneliness about him, few under- 
stood the man himself. He was a dreamer, not a warrior or 
statesman, and he neglected the army; but during the Franco- 
Prussian war of 1871, he was obliged to send Prussia his 
Bavarian troops, and the Kaiser put thetn under the command 
of his son, the Crown Prince Frederick. After the war, when 
the German Empire was formed, the Crown Prince used to go 
every year to Munich to review this Bavarian part of the Ger- 
man army, and when Ludwig heard his soldiers cheering this 
Prince, he grew suddenly jealous and refused after that to 
receive Frederick on his annual tour of inspection. 

Linderhof is a little gem, and suggests dainty elegance, 
but the Castle of Neuschwanstein stands for grandeur and 
feudal strength. It is not far from Linderhof, and is situated 
on the top of a mountain. From its turrets one has a view of 
the mountains, valleys, lakes and rivers extending miles beyond. 
Inside one sees everything pertaining to the Wagnerian heroes 
of the Niebelungen, the King's mythical friends. But unfortu- 
nately, Ludwig's imagination increased with his years, until his 
pleasant day-dreams turned into horrible nightmares, and he 
could get no rest. Then on cold winter nights the people 
would see him driving in his blue velvet sleigh at a breakneck 



CASTLES OF THE MAD KING OF BAVARIA 161 



pace down this mountain, but drive as he would, the phantom 
of coming insanity always kept pace with him. 

The famous Sangersaal, or hall of the singers, has a little 
stage at one end, and the paintings between the windows are 
of Parsifal, Lohengrin, and Tannhauser. They must be seen 
to be appreciated. Words no more describe great paintings 
than they can express the flavor of a peach that someone else 
has tasted. There is also a Lohengrin room at Neuschwan- 
stein with scenes from that knight's life, and swans are em- 
broidered in silver 
on all the chairs and 
hangings. 

Ludwig's boy- 
hood was spent in 
the castle of the al- 
most unpronounc- 
able name, Hohen- 
schwangau — high 
district of the swan 
and as, according to 
old traditions, there 
stood at one time a 
castle on the oppo- 
site mountain, Ludwig replaced it, and called the new castle 
Neuschwanstein, the new home of the swan. 

The dining-room here is red, and the table is noticeably 
small. The King rarely gave a banquet and loathed state 
functions, in fact he seldom appeared in public, and usually 
made the excuse of not being well. The throne-room can 
have but one criticism; it is overdone. The pillars are of 
marble and the walls are magnificently frescoed and richly 
gilded. There is no throne in this room, as the King died 
before the palace was finished. Besides these apartments 




HALL OF SINGERS AT NEUSCHWANSTEIN 



162 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



there are others in green and gold, purple, gray and silver. 
Many of the tables are of priceless lapis lazuli, buhl and 
malachite, and the wonderful clocks will be marveled at until 
the end of time. Ludwig believed extravagance a divine 
right of kings, and the less money he had, the more he spent. 
The walls of his Neuschwanstein bedroom were exquisitely 
carved, as well as the bed; in fact, this wood carving looks like 




THRONE ROOM AT NEUSCHWANSTEIN 



lace work. The water on the toilet-table poured into a golden 
bowl from the neck of a golden swan. Yet with all the fairy- 
like splendor, what a pathetic example the melancholy King 
was of the "boast of heraldry and the pomp of power!" 

His study was green and gold, somewhat Moorish in 
design. As one goes from room to room one excuses Ludwig's 
insanity, for enthusiastic visitors nearly go wild over them too! 
Everything is in perfect taste, and the materials are of course, 



CASTLES OF THE MAD KING OF BAVARIA 163 




of the very richest. They make Windsor castle look almost 
bare and shabby, and even 
the Czar's palaces somewhat 
commonplace. 

His building mania is 
well known, but it is the 
irony of fate that the Castle 
of Herrenchiemsee on its 
quiet little island that Lud- 
wig thought the least acces- 
sible from the busy world 
is now the one most fre- 
quented. The marble stair- 
way was never finished, and 
some of the statues along 
the wall that were to be re- 
produced in marble, now 
stand in plaster. There 
is a porcelain room so-called because of bits of painted porcelain 
encrusted in the doors and furniture, and they are as finely 
painted as miniatures. 

In the dining-room the table, like that at Sans Souci, was 

made to go below 
for the next course, 
in order that the 
King might be 
served without wait- 
ers. The sleeping- 
room was in red and 
gold, so gorgeous 
that fairyland could 
not contain one more 

KING'S STUDY, NEUSCHWANSTEIN bcaUtlful. The 



KING'S BED, NEUSCHWANSTEIN 




164 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



curtains and covering of the bed represent the toil of seven years 
of the finest embroiderers in Bavaria, and the gold toilet-set 
consists of several dozen different pieces. The King, how- 
ever, did not sleep in the red room, but in a blue room where 
the dressing-table is covered with the finest point lace. 

The hall of mirrors is undoubtedly the most magnificent 
room of its kind in the world. It is over one hundred metres 
long. The double row of chandeliers contain twenty-five 
hundred candles, all of which were lighted when the monarch 

made his short an- 
nual visit of nine 
days! 

But the maxi- 
mum of grandeur 
was the minimum of 
contentment. The 
terrible crisis came 
in 1886. It was de- 
cided by the minis- 
ters that Ludwig 
must be told that 
he was no longer 
fit to rule, but the King then at Neuschwanstein, heard the 
envoys were coming and had them imprisoned on their arrival! 
Shortly after they were freed, and having made their plans 
better, the next delegation abruptly entered Ludwig's room, 
and told him he was mad. Has such treatment of the insane 
ever been more unreasonable? To tell a crazy man that he is 
crazy ! 

Then they took him captive to the castle of Berg, which 
was considered the most suitable place for his imprisonment. 
It is on the lake of Starnberg, and can be seen from the car 
windows by travelers from Munich to Oberammagau. Every- 




NEUSCHWANSTEIN 



CASTLES OF THE MAD KING OF BAVARIA 165 



thing was against the King, and he grew rapidly more silent 
and preoccupied. One day he went out for a walk with one of 
his physicians, and as they were late in returning, the others 
feeling anxious, began a search. A hat and coat on the edge 
of the lake gave the clue, and afterward both bodies were 
found in the water. It is generally believed that Ludwig, after 
a struggle, succeeded in drowning both the physician and him- 
self. A monument on Lake Starnberg marks the spot where 
the King's body was found. 

No great events 
immortalize his 
reign, no great 
deeds are associated 
with his n a me 
besides his en- 
cour a g emen t of 
Wagner. He was 
not a toiler in the 
sea of real life. He 
only sat on the 
banks and listened 
to the human ocean 
with its ebb and 
flow, until its waves 
carried him, nothing 
but brushwood, into 
a haven of rest. He 
was buried in St. Michael's church in Munich, and his brother 
Otto succeeded him on the Bavarian throne. The curse of 
insanity is upon that brother also, and, as unfortunately he 
still lives, his uncle Luitpold is now Regent, a man greatly 
admired throughout Bavaria. 

Before Ludwig's death, he had in mind another castle, but 




KING LUDWIG II. BEFORE HIS DEATH 



166 RAMBLES ABROAD 

his ministers refused him the money and it remains unfinished. 
Although this building mania was an enormous expense to the 
nation, the Bavarians are grateful now to Ludwig the dreamer, 
for his air castles took permanent form and are now among 
Bavaria's proudest possessions. 



NURNBERG 



Nurnberg 



HE who would see Nurnberg in its early quaintness can- 
not afford to miss the next ship, for the past and 
present are having a contest here, each one claiming 
it her own. It has been considered for so long the grave of 
German antiquity that one is almost shocked now to find that 
progress has even penetrated through the defiant old stone 
walls that surround- 
ed the town, for 
Nurnberg, once the 
"City of the Em- 
pire," with its great 
citadel of the Middle 
Ages, its famous 
artists, thrifty 
burghers and well- 
known guilds has part of old wall, nurnberg 
come back to life again, and its modern industries demand to- 
day as much attention as did its ancient arts. 

Other German towns may be more beautiful, but Nurnberg 
has the advantage over many of the larger cities because it 
existed way back in the days of miracles. Everything one 
sees has a story, and all travelers know tradition is more enter- 
taining than truth. Anything made here since 1500 is con- 
sidered hopelessly modern. It also has the distinction of being 
the first place in Germany to have a railroad, and that at once 
connected with the outer world what, up to that time, had been 
a world in itself. 

Nurnberg is in northern Bavaria, the little river Pegnitz 

[169] 




170 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



rambles lazily through the town, at times in a discouraged 
manner, and the houses have high-peaked Gothic gables, with 
their narrow fronts picturesquely painted, as much adorned 
outside as in, while in every niche stands a little saint who 
looks just ready to step down and join the strollers in the 
street underneath him. These figures are tucked away so 
lavishly in all kinds of corners one wonders if there can be as 
many saints in heaven as on the buildings of Number g. The 
ancient city wall has been torn down in many places, or 




ISLAND IN THE PEGNITZ 



Utilized as a side for a structure against it, but the curious old 
square and round towers still remain true to their charge, and 
watch over the town with the pride of old custodians. 

As every child knows, Nurnberg is the headquarters for 
playthings and is still unrivaled in its toy manufactories. 
Watches too were first made here and were called Nurnberg 
eggs for a score of years afterward. Strangely enough though 
Nurnberg showed others how to keep track of time, the town 
itself has lived on regardless of its changes. 



NURNBERG 



171 



Perhaps it is best known as the home of the Meistersingfers, 
for sauntering through the quiet streets they warbled their 
careless lays, all unknowing their rhymes and rhythms were to 
form an important chapter in the history of German song. The 
house of their laureate, Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, is held 
now in the reverence of a shrine — none the less for the fact 
that it has become a 
wine shop. Then 
too everyone visits 
the tiny tavern, cen- 
turies old, where, at 
the sound of a little 
bell announcing that 
the sausages were 
ready, the Meister- 
singers betook them- 
selves to drive dull 
care away. This 
miniature inn is still 
open today, the sau- 
sages sizzle as usual 
on the stove before 
you, and though the 
sound of the bell is 
still, the name re- 
mains unchanged, "Bravourst glocklein" — the little bell and 
sausage inn. 

Nurnberg is above all else a city of saints and churches. 
St. Lorenz is especially beautiful, while the old stained-glass 
windows show the ancients had better coloring than we, and 
are far richer in tints than the window opposite put in to 
commemorate the eighty-fourth birthday of Emperor William 
I. In that church too is the wonderful Ciborium, or pix, the 




A GLIMPSE OF NURNBERG 



172 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



receptacle for the euchorist, a slender stone tower reaching^ 
almost to the roof of the church. Adam Kraft and his assis- 
tants worked on it for over ten years, and some figures are so 
finely carved one cannot distinguish them clearly with the naked 
eye, but no labor was considered too arduous to beautify a 
repository for the sacred host. Suspended from the ceiling 

is the curiously carved 
wooden piece of Veit Stoss,. 
called the Salutation, and 
though once terribly broken 
by a fall, it is now satisfac- 
torily restored. For the best 
example of the great brass, 
founder, Peter Vischer, go 
to the church of St. Sebaldus. 
Now this saint could make 
icicles burn and do all man- 
ner of wonderful things, and 
when an old woman, bound 
(because she was a sinner), 
kindly bent down to 
straighten a candle on St. 
Sebaldus's coffin, her iron 
ring immediately burst off, 
setting her free, and she 
went on her way rejoicing. 
In order to have a suitable tomb for so holy a man, Peter 
Vischer and his five sons gave their best work and put the 
twelve Apostles around it like a guard, with twelve more 
figures above and seventy marvelously executed allegorical 
ones below, while on the other side from the saint the old 
artist himself stands, like a trade-mark, with apron and chisel. 
The Bride's Door too is well worth seeing, and Adam Kraft 




PETER VISCHER 




ST. SEBALDUS' TOMB IN BRONZE, THE WORK OF PETER VISCHER 



NURNBERG 175 

has done here a monument in which he surpassed even 
himself. 

When the Jews were brutally driven from the town, the 
Frauenkirche was erected on the site of their old synagogue, 
and there for many years the imperial regalia was kept until 
it was carried off to Vienna. On the outside of the church is 
that old clock fashioned in memory of the Golden Bull, the 
corner-stone of German constitutions. The Emperor sits in 
the middle and at noon out march regularly the electors to 
greet him and then obediently return to their places in the 
clock to the delight of the onlookers in the street. 

The Germanic Museum is in the old building of a 
suppressed Carthusian monastery, and though the exhibit is 
considered one of the finest in Germany, absolutely nothing 
could equal the attraction of the rambling old building itself. In 
the midst of one court is a well, over which hangs an iron bucket 
long since grown too old to work, and another court is flooded 
with water which rushes from the mouths of iron dragons sta- 
tioned in the four corners. In wandering through the confusing 
rooms one loses the way several times, but it is far too 
interesting to see what comes next to try to find one's self. 
Furniture, pottery, glassware, weapons, watches of all sizes 
and shapes, toys, the old goldsmith's best work — everything is 
here to illustrate "the long pedigree of toil." The brautbecher 
is a bride's drinking-cup, used at all wedding feasts in early 
times. It is made of silver and represents the hollow figure 
of a woman standing, holding in her uplifted hands a small, 
swinging cup over her head. The groom is supposed to drink 
out of the cup which is formed by her skirts inverted, balancing 
meantime the bride's cup while he drinks, for if a drop is spilt 
from hers, it is considered an evil omen, and it required great 
dexterity to keep the smaller cup turned gradually to the 
proper angle. The brautbecher exhibited in this Museum is 



176 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



one of the oldest in existence. There is a bed entirely of 
ebony and ivory that calls forth many exclamations of wonder 
and admiration, while the series of rooms furnished in different 
periods show one exactly how the people lived in the Middle 

Ages. Here too is the pic- 
ture of Kaulbach's Otto III., 
exhuming in 1000 the body 
of Charlemagne, whom he 
finds seated, as he was 
buried, on a marble throne, 
with the sceptre in his hand. 
Albrecht Durer, the 
"Evangelist of Art," and 
father of German painting, 
has here his Hercules, Pieta, 
and the portraits of Charle- 
magne and Sigismund. The 
old painter's house is re- 
ligiously preserved by a 
local society, and as he is 
the child of whom Nurnberg 
is most proud, all interest 
centers in his home. This 
appreciation, however, came 
somewhat late, as it was only 
after Venice and Vienna had 
offered him a home and 
princely income that the 
people of Nurnberg realized 
how little his native town had ever added to his small means. 
He was so fine a man that his character is well given in the re- 
mark of his friend, Phillip Melancthon: "Albrecht Durer's least 
merit was his art." It is unfortunate that so little of his work 




CHARLEMAGNE by DURER 



NURNBERG 177 

can be seen here, as only copies of his pictures are kept on ex- 
hibition. One must stoop to pass through the low doors, and 
the stairway is narrow and steep, while the rooms are scarcely 
more than closets. The old kitchen utensils are so fearfully 
and wonderfully made, he was an artist indeed who could pre- 
pare a meal with them. The furniture has the unmistakable 
look of the genuine antique of the sixteenth century, but he 
was especially to be envied the massive old front door, strongly- 
ornamented with iron, for had the wolf been there he could 
never with "all his huffing and all his puffing have blown the: 
house in." 

Cemeteries may not seem worthy of a visit to those on a. 
pleasure trip, but everyone goes to St. John's to pay tribute ta 
the genius of Durer. 



" 'Emigravit' is the inscription on the tombstone 
where he lies, 
Dead he is, but not departed— for the artist 
never dies." 



It is approaching that very cemetery that the so-called 
stations of Adam Kraft stand. A rich man wishing to atone 
for a sin, went to Jerusalem, and securing the exact distance 
Christ carried His cross to Calvary, he also noted each place 
where He rested, and on his return, the penitent commanded 
Adam Kraft, the master-carver, to erect at a distance following 
his measurements, the stone-carved pictures of that scene from 
Christ's life, and at the end of the distance stands his exquisite 
crucifixion. These stations or tablets have lately been re- 
stored, but the succeeding generations did not hesitate to join 
them on walls, and one sees now, forming part of modern 
buildings, what were intended for isolated monuments. Nothing 
could be greater than the surprise of Adam Kraft if he could 
take what was in his time the lonely walk to the cemetery, 



178 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



and see today how progress has changed the rural spot into 
the center of activity. 

The Nurnbergers were most lavish with their art, and even 
fountains in common markets received years of work. The 
Schone Brunnen, beautiful fountain, is well named, and is re- 
cently glistening under a fresh coat of gold leaf, while the 
Gansemannchen on the old goose-market represents, in an 

extraordinarily life-like man- 
ner, a man escaping with 
two geese tucked under his 
arms. 

The Burg, Nurnberg's 
famous castle, commenced in 
1050, is surrounded with a 
moat thirty-three feet deep, 
and a wall (that was) thick 
enough to withstand the ter- 
rifying Huns. In the court- 
yard Queen Kunigunde 
planted the sprig from the 
tree that saved her husband, 
Henry II., from a farther fall 
down a steep ravine. History 
says it is a linden, but nothing 
but the stump remains, and 
after eight hundred years there is not enough life left in it to 
resent being called by any other name. 

The view from the castle balconies is limitless and many 
of the great rooms are still furnished. The chapels are 
Romanesque, with one over the other, but the most curious part 
of the Burg is that tower in which stands the Iron Maiden who 
gave the embrace of death. This is a hollow figure with pro- 
truding spikes on the inside, and after any one was put into it 




IRON MAIDEN WHO GAVE THE 
EMBRACE OF DEATH 



NURNBERG 179 

and the clasps tightened that was the end of that story, then 
the body dropped through a trap-door into the cavern below. 
All kinds of implements of torture are seen, quite enough to 
make living in our day preferable. 

A well is shown, dug by prisoners' hands, hundreds of 
fathoms deep, and the credulous are always interested to see 
the hoof-marks of the horse which, urged by its captive rider, 
made that impossible leap over the wide moat. His escape 
caused a Nurnberg saying: "The Nurnbergers hang no man 
until they have caught him." The faith the guards have in 
these hoof-marks is wonderful in this enlightened age, when 
not even seeing is believing. 

The Rathhaus, or town hall, part old, part new, is shown 
by the custodian's young daughter in peasant garb, quite like 
a village scene from an opera. It is nothing to her that you 
have planned to visit four more places before lunch, and do not 
care for a detailed account of even the door handles from the 
beginning to the present time. Haste has no meaning for a 
German and she cannot be persuaded to "cancel half a line, 
nor leave out a word of it." The old timber roofed hall is as 
artistic as it is strong and quite triumphs over the new part. 
Each room has its associations with the great men and great 
conferences of the past, and the dungeon underneath still hides 
from daylight its dark record of cruelty. Durer's painting of 
the triumphal entry of Maximilian was done in the days when a 
portrait of one man might easily do for any other member of 
the human family, and it is doubtful if even the Emperor's 
own mother could have recognized him in that old masterpiece. 

John Palm's house is now being rebuilt and no record will 
remain of the home of the good old bookseller whom Napoleon 
had shot as a traitor. The Nassauer house, the New Law 
Courts and Melanchton's gymnasium, to say nothing of dozens 
of other places, are well worth seeing, and the old curiosity 



180 RAMBLES ABROAD 

shops hugging bridges that people do cross, and those miserly 
remote in back streets, would delight the soul of a Jew. The 
old silver and ivories are so tempting, the only way to escape 
is to harden your heart like Pharoah, and strongly resist their 
appeal to your pocketbook, although of course you will wish 
afterward you had bought something as a souvenir of 
Nurnberg, for 

"Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of 
art and song, 
Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that 
round them throng." 



A GLIMPSE OF THE WARTBURG 



A Glimpse of tke Wartburg 

SUCH memories haunt the old Wartburg of Tannhauser, of 
St. Elizabeth, and of Martin Luther, that truth and tra- 
dition are in open conflict. Be it fact or legend that 
the keeper tells, it is so interesting, the adulteration only adds 
to the flavor of the tale, and one swallows it all down unques- 
tioningly, because here in the old stronghold it has a genuine 
antique flavor in perfect harmony with the time-worn surround- 
ings. 

The Wartburg castle stands in the midst of the Thuringian 
forest, five hundred and sixty-five feet above the pretty little 
town of Eisenach. It makes an ideal climb for any walkers 
who enjoy scaling a perpendicular peak, while for others less 
gifted in acrobatic feats, an electric car goes part way up, but 
the easiest ascent is made by carriage, and cabmen seize their 
prey at the Eisenach station and proudly urge the acceptance 
of their uncomfortable vehicles, patterned after the chariot that 
carried Elijah up to heaven, with springs of an antiquity in 
keeping with the whole place. 

The Burg was begun in 1070 and does not consist merely 
of a castle, but of towers of defense before which soldiers still 
stand guard, and of many separate buildings grouped together, 
of which first and foremost comes the Landgrafenhaus, or 
palace. Here, leading to the chapel, is the Elizabeth Gallery 
with that Saint's "Seven Works of Mercy" frescoed on the 
wall. She was the daughter of a King of Hungary and after 
marrying the Landgraf of Thuringia, came to the Wartburg to 
live. She was pronounced a great beauty and was soon be- 
loved by the whole country. Her husband, however, was much 

[183] 



184 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



averse to her doing so much for the poor, and one day meeting 
her when she was as usual on charity bent, he angrily demanded 
to see what she was carrying, and lo, when she began to un- 
cover the food, nothing but a mass of roses tumbled out, for 
her guardian angel, mindful of the need, performed for her at 
this critical hour a miracle. 

Terrorized by her stern confessor, she grew, unfortunately, 
overzealous in her religious scruples, and began a system of 
penance pitiful in our improved age. After a pathetic 
farewell, she left her children, believing she must go out into 

the world; so, re- 
nouncing the luxury 
of the castle, she 
lived among the 
needy for several 
years, spinning and 
toiling for them, and 
during the plague 
walked unharmed in 
their midst. Her 
husband's death was 
her life sorrow, and 
when her young son was turned out from the Wartburg by a 
jealous uncle, the family were poor in good earnest. Although 
eventually restored to their inheritance, Elizabeth's health was 
too shattered by self-denial to enjoy her return, and at her tomb 
in Marburg so many miracles were claimed to have taken place, 
she was canonized as the patron saint of Hungary. Her 
apartments have been recently redecorated with scenes of her 
betrothal, death, etc., and fancy finding electric lights now in 
the room she used in 1200! 

In the Hall of the Singers is a modern painting represent- 
ing the brilliant scene that took place here v^rhen the Landgraf 




ST. ELIZABETH'S BEDROOM 



A GLIMPSE OF THE WARTBURG 



185 




offered his niece Elizabeth's hand to the prize singer of the 
land. Then came the great singer's contest, in which Walther 
of the Vogelweide took part, and where Tannhauser, scorning 
the others because they knew nothing of real love, launched 
forth into that description of his days with Venus that sent 
the astonished guests home in horrified confusion and broke 
his poor Elizabeth's heart. 

It is this famous room that Elizabeth means when she 
enters in the second 
act of Tannhauser 
and sings her well 
known song, "Oh, 
Thou Dear Hall," 
and on the back of 
the small stage here 
are inscribed selec- 
tions from the ballads 
of these minstrels. 

In the Knights' Building is the Hall of Weapons, where 
armor of all ages is displayed, over which flags won in many 
bloody battles are triumphantly hung, making an ideal room of 
feudal strength and power. All through the castle animal 
skins, stag-horns and other trophies of the chase abound, and 
driving up the mountain so many deer are in sight, one 
understands why Emperor William counts on an annual visit 
to the Wartburg. 

The great festival hall runs the length of the upper floor, 
splendid in carved wood and gold decorations. The other 
rooms have stone floors and many picturesque stone pillars 
through them, low ceilings, and small but heavy single doors 
■curiously ornamented with iron trimmings, for this building 
dates from a time when folding doors were unknown. The 
few old carved chairs are jealously guarded and copied to give 



ELIZABETH AND TANNHAUSER IN THE 
SINGERHALL, WARTBURG 



186 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



the castle the same appearance that it had "in the brave days 
of old." Indeed, it ranks today as the finest secular building 
in existence, of the Romanesque style, and the restored rooms 
used by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, to whom it belongs, have a 
strange splendor that makes the Wartburg different from other 
royal residences. 

The next building of interest is that where Martin Luther 
spent nine months, and one sees the same table in it today 




MARTIN LUTHER TRANSLATED THE BIBLE ON THIS TABLE 



where he translated the Bible in 152 L His celebrated picture 
by Lucas Cranach hangs on the wall opposite to that of his 
gentle friend, Phillip Melancthon, and Luther's parents beam 
beside him, unmindful of the time when, as their stubborn son, 
he needed fifteen whippings a day. Mothers of bad little boys 
should take hope, for the world still rings with this one's 
renown. The bed, bookcase, old porcelain stove, and some of 
his letters remain intact, but the blot of ink made when he 
threw the whole inkstand at the wall where he thought the 



A GLIMPSE OF THE WARTBURG 187 

Devil was tempting him, has been entirely chipped off by 
relic hunters. Outside his door is inscribed the first verse 
of his own hymn, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." 

Martin Luther was no pale-faced recluse, but an honest, 
straight-forward German, with a wholesome love of fun and the 
courage of his convictions. After he saw in Rome the corrupt 
state of the clergy, he boldly remonstrated against the indul- 
gences Leo X. was selling to obtain money to finish St. Peter's, 
and declaring the soul did not fly out of purgatory when a 
sinner's money dropped in the box for pardon, he started the 
Reformation by claiming repentance came from the heart, not 
from the pocketbook. When the Pope threatened to excommu- 
nicate Luther for daring to defy him, he promptly burned the 
Pope's bull, and at the Diet of Worms, when the mighty Em- 
peror, Charles V., commanded him to retract his declaration, 
his brave refusal rang clearly through the rooms: "Here I 
stand, I can no more!" and would take nothing back. It was 
later that the Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise, fearing 
the Emperor would imprison him, had Luther kidnapped and 
carried up to the Wartburg for safe-keeping. His admir- 
ing host gave him comfortable shelter, while the Reformation 
spread abroad, and there, in undisturbed quiet, Martin Luther 
made part of his translation of the Bible, by which priests no 
longer could be the only readers, but all men and women might 
read it in their own language and judge for themselves. Thus 
it happened that one man changed the whole world. 

The Reformation room depicts scenes from his career, and 
down in the village is the cottage where, as a boy, he stayed 
with Frau Cotta. The view from the Wartburg windows beg- 
gars all description, and a few miles in the distance stands the 
Burschenschaften monument, erected in memory of the gather- 
ing the liberty-loving students held here in 1871, when they 
clamored for reform with a vehemence that knew no abatement 



188 RAMBLES ABROAD 

until a new German constitution was given the people. This 
monument is made of handsome stone, but because the students 
erected it, many laughingly insist it looks like a beer mug with 
the handle left off. 

Another point of interest below in Eisenach is the house 
where John Sebastian Bach was born in 1685, and for many 
years after, Bachs, little and big, every one a musician, congre- 
gated there annually for a musical reunion, and this custom 
was kept up without intermission to our own time. 

At the entrance of the castle there is a welcome inn, where 
the German life preservers, beer and ham sandwiches, may be 
secured before making the descent down the mountain, but 
though sightseers come and go, the old Wartburg defies time. 
Its years have only added to its dignity and lofty beauty, for 
the wrinkles that always come with age have been filled by 
pretty little mosses that hide its scars from view, and enable 
it to face the world boldly, a monarch among strongholds. 



WEIMAR 



w 



eimar 



GOETHE said Weimar had a wonderful destiny, like 
Bethlehem in Judea, it was small but great. The 
people love to call it the German Athens, and are so 
proud of its past they quite overlook the mortifying fact that 
the days of Goethe and Schiller are over and gone and at 
present only a memory in which they themselves had no part. 

Weimar is the capitol of the grand duchy of Saxe-Weimar- 
Eisenach, now belonging to the German Empire, although still 
governed by its own Duke. Hamilton Mabie calls the town 
the "custodian of literature," and the late Empress Augusta, 
wife of the old Kaiser William I., thought it so much more 
honor to be from Weimar, 
than to be queen of military 
Prussia, that to Bismarck's 
disgust she used to sign her 
name — Augusta, nee Saxe- 
Weimar. 

Karl August was their 
famous Duke who not only 
attracted brilliant men to 
Weimar, but who also had 
the magnetism to hold them 
there. To him culture was 
more desirable than wealth 
or ducal power, and the 
encouragement he gave 
Goethe alone has made him 
immortal. Like Hubbard, 




DUKE KARL AUGUST 



[1911 



192 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



he believed "helping a genius is next to being one," and he 
gave over rooms in his own palace to the four poets, Goethe, 
Schiller, Herder and Wieland, which they used as studies, 
coming and going at will. Today one sees in Schiller's room 
"Wallenstein," "Marie Stuart" and "Don Carlos" illustrated 
on the walls, while in Goethe's are "Faust," "Hermann and 
Dorothea," etc. To have their rooms afterward depict scenes 
from their works was the idea of a later Duchess of Weimar, 
Maria Paulowna, who being used to the splendors of Russia, 



R^^^^^ 


s- 




^wrnkmA 


h ""^"^^aSBB^ 





PALACE OF THE GRAND DUKE OF WEIMAR 

made many improvements after her arrival, and brought such 
great vases of malachite and lapis lazuli to adorn the palace as 
this modest little Court had never dreamt existed. 

The small Gothic dining-room of this palace with the walls 
of carved wood and the Moses conservatory are unique, the 
latter being filled with a fountain and palms which "half con- 
ceal and half reveal" the baby Moses in marble, floating pre- 
sumably among the rushes, while the marble daughter of 
Pharoah watches him from her pedestal opposite. The original 
paintings of the heads of the Apostles by Leonardo da Vinci, 



WEIMAR 



193 



which he designed for the "Last Supper" in Milan, are the 
most treasured pictures in the palace, although the old por- 
traits and tapestries make a rich endowment. The furnishing 
is quite a contrast to the cold grandeur of other royal resi- 
dences, for here everything has a meaning, and in the selection 
of each object it is apparent brains were used as well as money. 

The town teems 
with Goethe relics. 
In fact a week's stay 
here makes one so 
familiar with every 
year of his long life 
that visitors soon 
catch the popular 
feeling and convince 
themselves that they 
too knew him person- 
ally. This philoso- 
pher-poet never 
struggled in an attic 
with want and adver- 
sity; he was blessed 
from the first with 
health, wealth, intel- 
lect and position, as 
well as the beauty of 
Apollo, and fame 
soon followed. The house given him by the Duke is now the 
Goethe Museum and has many things replaced in it just as he 
had them during his forty years occupancy. While wandering 
in Italy he collected statues and pictures, copies of great 
works, and on his return scattered them about his home where 
they still remain. A piano on which Mendelssohn played for 




GOETHE 



194 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



him also stands in its old place, and near by is exhibited the 
gold laurel crown, jeweled with emeralds, sent by the women 
of Goethe's birthplace, the city of Frankfort. 

He died in 1832 in the simple little room off his study, 
where he worked apart from the rest of the house which was 
more lavishly furnished, suitable to his position, although 
nowhere in Weimar, even among the highest, was there any 
rich magnificence — all that remains indicates unpretentious sim- 
plicity. A faithful 
picture of his death 
hangs in an upper 
room, so that one 
sees him in the same 
arm-chair that is left 
beside his bed, and 
as his eyes grow 
dimmer and dimmer 
he begs with his last 
breath for "More 
light." He, himself, 
however, made all 
the brightness of Weimar and it has been dark indeed since 
he left. 

The ridiculous young dandy and the grave old scholar are 
two very different Goethes. As a youth he loved easily and for- 
got easily, being more in love with loving than with the actual 
loved one, and his poetic passion cooled as soon as he put it 
in writing and worked it all out on paper. His works he ad- 
mitted were his own biography, and it is very apparent from 
them what a conspicuous role women played in his life. He 
was many-sided and had learned many trades, while he took 
up the study of law, medicine, art, music, mineralogy, natural 
history and the sciences, each in turn, and acquired information 




"MORE LIGHT"— GOETHE'S LAST WORDS 



WEIMAR 195 

that served him well for his writings. There was no 
occasion for haste in his life; he lived an experience before 
writing it, and took sixty years to finish Faust. 

The Duke Karl August's friendship for him lasted for 
thirty years, a fine tribute to the qualities of both men. One 
completed the other. The Duke enabled Goethe to write at 
will, and he in return brought all his ability to help the Duke 
in judiciously governing his little duchy. The two were insep- 
arable and even in death the Prince and the Poet are together, 
for Karl August paid his two friends the highest honor and 
commanded that both Goethe and Shiller should be buried with 
him in the vault intended^ only for the ducal family. The 
caskets are always covered now with the wreaths laid there 
from time to time by admiring friends, for all the world today 
is their audience, and a great gold laurel crown from Prague 
is kept on Goethe's and a similar one of silver on Schiller's. 

The park, left just as nature planned it, accompanies the 
pretty little river in its rambles through the town, and there 
Goethe wandered for hours, for he declared his best thoughts 
came to him while walking. Much time was given to reflec- 
tion with a determination to penetrate to the truth of every- 
thing in life. He could not be bribed or deceived or awed, 
every incident of his career was stored away with its lesson 
for future writing, and "every human being he met sat to him 
as a model." 

The park is filled with memories of this ideal Court. In 
the Roman House and tiny Templar House the two friends 
tarried a night when the spirit moved them to escape all Court 
ceremony, and not far from their tiny cottage called the Bark 
House is Goethe's Gardenhaus, the most perfect retreat a poet 
could have. Remote from all confusion, aloof from the busy 
world's toil and traffic, surrounded by dignified old trees and 
his beloved garden bordered by a modest little river, there 



196 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



came to him in the midst of such peace and beauty, the noble 
thoughts that made him Germany's greatest poet! 

This wooded spot was dedicated to Frau von Stein, and 
the curtains she embroidered for the windows of the miniature 
mansion are ever loyal to their purpose though ready now to 
fall in tatters. Her needlework was not the only thing about 
her that Goethe admired, for she cast a charm over him that 
he never fully threw off, but her house in town is at present 




GOETHE'S GARDENHAUS 



occupied by the Greek Church and nothing is left to tell of her 
varied life there. 

Schiller's house is open to sightseers, although there is 
not a great deal of interest there besides his letters, portraits 
and the uncomfortable bed where he died. He reserved for 
his own use the small bare upper rooms — high thinking of 
poets is noticeably benefited by a proximity to the roof. Be- 
fore he and Goethe became such devoted friends and previous 
to the days of Karl August's encouragement, his struggle with 
poverty had proved too arduous for his strength, and when the 



WEIMAR 



197 



long-desired recognition at last knocked at his door the dying 
poet was too weak to rise and open. Now he rests from his 
toil, but his work lives on, and today his poems are so 
admired one fails to understand why in his early life the public 
did not appreciate them. The city has erected a large bronze 
statue to Schiller and Goethe standing together with clasped 
hands, and an entire building 
is given over to the preser- 
vation of their manuscripts. 
Liszt was given a house, 
rent free, and the same old 
maid-servant who waited 
upon him, now keeps vigil 
over his rooms, and the de- 
scription of his daily life 
there loses nothing by her 
telling, for her devotion to 
her old master is such that 
she never tires repeating 
over every day how emper- 
ors and kings honored him. 
The collection of jeweled 
snuff-boxes is large, all 
useless presents, she regretfully remarked, as he never used 
snuff, and the walking-sticks are of all kinds of woods, plain 
and richly ornamented, while wreaths, rings and letters from 
famous people are too numerous to mention. He always rose 
at half-past four, and after composing a while, she said he 
started for church, his religious tendency following him all 
through life. On his return she placed his coffee on the table, 
shown in the illustration, and after a little nap on the couch he 
went over to his desk by the window again and resumed his 
compositions. He took untold pride in his pupils, delighted to 




SCHILLER 



198 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



be photographed with them, and on Sundays his small upper 
rooms would not hold all the admirers who gathered there. 
When traveling he invariably carried with him a deaf piano- 
board, still there, on which he could practice to keep his fingers 
limber and yet not call down upon his head the wrath of his 
fellow-beings. 

Pictures of his gifted daughter, Frau Wagner, are numerous 
and also the interesting face of the woman he loved best, who 

not free to marry 
him, moved to Italy, 
staying there away 
from temptation un- 
til she died, and in 
reflecting now on 
Liszt's life an un- 
dercurrent of disap- 
pointment is always 
distinguishable and 
LISZT IN WEIMAR au abuudaucc of 

"hopes that retreat and regrets that remain." 

Prophets without honor in their own country found in 
Weimar all the admiration they coveted, and the Library is 
filled with various souvenirs of noted people, for every posses- 
sion of genius is considered sacred, no matter how trivial it 
may be. In the Museum is the great statue of Goethe and 
Physche, and the mural paintings by Preller of the Odyssey 
are highly prized, while Lenbach's admiration of the Rem- 
brandts here influenced him to confine his efforts to portraits 
and thus he became Germany's greatest portrait painter. 
Weimar has now a fine art school and every encouragement is 
given to painters and sculptors. Another school worthy of 
mention is one that trains girls for service as cooks, nurses, 
housemaids, laundresses, etc. It is under the patronage of the 




WEIMAR 



199 



Grand Duchess; any servant drilled there is in great demand 
and it has proved a more practical hejp to domestic peace, 
than hanging up mottoes of "God bless our Home." 

The present young Duke is trying to follow in the foot- 
steps of his illustrious ancestors and is deeply absorbed in a 
plan for national German opera, but even now the Weimar 
opera compares favorably with that of other cities. This Duke 
is blessed with vast wealth; from his grandmother he inherited 
a right to the throne of Holland, and should Queen Wilhelmina 
die without leaving a child, Duke William Ernest of Saxe- 
Weimar would be the next king of Holland. 

The town also boasts of having been the home of Lucas 
Cranach, whose famous "Crucifixion" hangs over the altar in 
the Stadtkirche. Her- 
der was the universally 
beloved pastor-poet of 
this church and on every 
hand one sees his favor- 
ite motto: "Love, light 
and life." Mme. de 
Stael, Thackery and 
dozens of other writers 
found inspiration here, 
and Napoleon, the uni- 
versal tourist, reached 
Weimar after his victory 
of Jena over William 
IV. of Prussia. Then 
Karl August's wife, the 
Duchess Luise, was 
obliged to receive the 
Conqueror on the stair- 
way of the castle, and 




THE DUCHESS ANNA AMALIA, MOTHER OF 
KARL AUGUST 



200 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



he announced afterward she was one woman his two hundred 
cannons could not awe or frighten, and he promptly sent her a 
Sevres tea-service with miniatures of the French Court beauties 
that is absolutely one of the most exquisite examples of porce- 
lain painting in existence. 

Karl August's mother, the Duchess Amalia, was the one 
who first awakened Weimar to an appreciation of art and 
letters. In her palace called the Dower House was a table 




SCHLOSS TIEFURT 



around which her so-called circle used to gather for literary 
feasts, and such rhymes and songs and little comedies went 
round, as made time fly by unnoticed. Her tiny summer home 
out at Tiefurt looks like a playhouse; there the artist Angelica 
Kauffman, Goethe and Karl August, and others of this same 
circle were entertained in rooms so small one can scarcely 
believe they were meant for real people, but though limited in 
space their fascination is boundless. There are over three 
thousand old prints and engravings, in fact not an inch of wall 
is left vacant and in looking over the variety of subjects the 



WEIMAR 201 

Duchess and her son collected, one has a slight idea how far 
reaching was their information. The grounds make it a verit- 
able little Eden; here they took tea on the upper piazza or gave 
a play in the open which was often attended with such success 
the Court quickly packed and gave it for a little lark in a near- 
by village. 

The Belvidere palace at the end of the park also had an 
open-air theater where many a merry comedy drove dull care 
away. There was, to be sure, no great wealth or splendor, and 
though more ceremonious Courts ridiculed the unpretentious 
appointments, the fact was beyond question that Weimar had 
what money could not buy and Goethe summed up its charm 
when he said: "Where have I not been? Yet I am always 
glad to return to Weimar." 



BABELSBURG 

The Favorite Home of Emperor William I. 



Babelsburg 

The Favorite Home of Emperor William 1. 

AFTER "doing" all the other palaces to be found in 
Potsdam, the tourists are usually so exhausted that 
when they hear that Babelsburg is several miles 
farther on, and not at all imposing, they easily persuade each 
other that as long as they have seen the important ones, they 
would better not attempt another palace that day, but save 
their remaining strength for Berlin that evening. 

Of course the Old Palace in Potsdam makes one see Ger- 
man history with one's own eyes, the New Palace asserts its 
regal grandeur to all visitors, while Sans Sousi quite realizes 
one's idea of a perfect little retreat, but Babelsburg in its undis- 
turbed retirement nestles down among its great trees with an 
unpretentious charm that no other royal abode in Germany 
can equal. 

It is nearly always open to the public and free to all, 
although the caretaker who conducts any one through expects 
a fee. It is amusing to see his feigned surprise when he is 
handed something, as everyone knows he calculates at first 
sight just how much he can make out of each visitor. 

Babelsburg is modern and built in Norman style. As was 
the custom among feudal barons, the hall is adorned with 
trophies of the chase; great boar-heads startle one, stag-horns 
cover the wall, weapons add to the picturesqueness and suits 
of armor stand about like sentinels, suggesting to intruders 
that here dwelt a man of might. 

The other rooms are in startling contrast. Simplicity 
reigns supreme, nothing suggests expense or luxury. It might 

[207] 



208 



RAMBLES ABROAD 




easily be taken for the home of a plain country gentleman in 
moderate circumstances. One scarcely notices the decorations, 
no masterpieces embellish the walls. There are merely three 
or four good paintings, the rest are family portraits, a few 
pictures done by the Crown Princess Frederick and numerous 

prints of battle scenes and 
horses. 

Chintz takes the place 
of tapestry or brocaded 
hangings; instead of rare 
bric-a-brac the tables are 
strewn with homely little 
trinkets and work-boxes 
used by some member of 
the family. The clocks 
told the time, they added 
nothing to the beauty of 
the rooms. The chairs 
rested the weary, they 
would create no envy 
among collectors of odd 
bits of furniture except 
now for their association 
with the old Kaiser. He was no scholar and yawned when 
the Empress Augusta spoke of literature, and no coveted 
editions are seen in his library. 

The most curious thing found in the rooms is the Emperor's 
camp bed. That narrow, hard little cot had bedding on it that 
would have caused disapproval and disgust in a thrifty linen- 
loving hausfrau. The plainness and stiffness of this bedroom 
surprise even those who knew his simple tastes. Think of the 
contrast between the state beds of his various fellow monarchs 
and this primitive little iron bedstead of the Emperor of Germany! 




WILLIAM 1 OF GERMANY 



BABELSBURG 



209 



Regal pomp had no meaning for him. His daily life ran 
on with methodical exactness — the same yesterday, today and 
tomorrow. He wrote in his diary when a young man, that he 
must think of his rank only to remind himself of its duties and 
must never forget a prince is only a man and the laws for 
others were also for him, as he would be judged by them ! He 

stands in history as 

an emperor, but 
greater than the sov- 
ereign was the con- 
queror in him, and 
greater than the man, 
the soldier. 

His subjects 
might b e scholars, 
musicians and artists, 
he saw in them only 
warriors. He wanted 
not brains but mus- 
cles, not to know their 
dreams but their cour- 
age. His one al- 
mighty aim was to 
form from the innu- 
merable antagonistic 
sovereignties around 
him a power strong enough to withstand outside nations. 
He thought only of war, war, war. He was never seen 
when not wearing his uniform, gunpowder permeated the 
very atmosphere about him. He viewed the country as 
a battlefield. He studied maps that he might select the 
best places to encamp. He moved his army as easily 
as we do our chessmen. His troops were drilled with 




EMPEROR WILLIAM I.'S BEDROOM 



210 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



relentless severity, no details were too small to be over- 
looked. 

On his table the inkstand is from a cannon-ball, the pens 
are made of splintered lances. The rooms were left untouched 
after the great warrior's occupancy, and his favorite photo- 
graphs of his family are strewn over the mantles and tables 
just as he left them. This home indicated his personality more 




EMPEROR WILLIAM I. AT THE TOMB OF HIS MOTHER, QUEEN LUISE 

than anything else. He was not a man who revealed in any 
way what to him was dearest, and while some claim he con- 
cealed his feelings, others think he had none to conceal. 

However, we know his love for his mother, Queen Luise, 
never lessened. His visit to her tomb before starting for the 
Franco-Prussian war and his later visit after his victory over 
the French, which avenged the humiliation Napoleon had 
brought upon her, proved the memory of his mother came first 



BABELSBURG 



211 



in his life. He thought of her in his anxiety and in his victory, 
and the little vase of cornflowers often stood on his desk, 
because his mother had loved them. 

The disappointment of his life was his father's refusal to 
allow him to marry Elise Radziwill. After his struggle with 
that sorrow his heart never again asserted any part in his life. 
He did his duty with 
a determination that 
never faltered, he 
carved out Ger- 
many's great future 
with world - famous 
success, and yet 
there was always 
something lacking 
in his own life. 

When he first 
became King of Prus- 
sia crowds gathered 
in the streets to at- 
tack him, but in later 
years they brought 
their little children 
to catch a glimpse 
of the beloved old 
Kaiser who regularly 
appeared every noon 
at his library window in Berlin. Yet the man himself was 
as undisturbed by their plaudits as he had been by their 
curses. True, under him the different German kingdoms 
and duchies finally united and then proclaimed him Emperor 
of the Fatherland, this old man who some people had thought 
scarce strong enough at his brother's death to be even King 




QUEEN LUISE, by RICHTER 
MOTHER OF EMPEROR WILLIAM I. 



212 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



of Prussia! But with the triumph in his soul the man changed 
not. Thrilling scenes left no traces on him. 

When age finally weakened him, braces supported him in 
the same erect position on his horse. To the people he was 
always the stalwart soldier, the great conqueror. To him the 
nation was more than they, its component parts, and though 

he dealt with them with 
paternal kindness, a wall of 
reserve separated his inner 
from his outer life. Few 
ever saw the other side. Be- 
fore conquering other nations 
the man had conquered him- 
self. 

The park surrounding 
Babelsburg is very extensive 
and beautifully laid out. On 
one side the ground slopes 
down to the river, and on the 
other it undulates in minia- 
ture mountains and valleys 
for miles beyond. Some con- 
sider its interior insignificant, 
but no one can pronounce it 
devoid of interest, for there 
was William I.'s favorite 
residence, and the grounds alone make a paradise of it. 

Empress Augusta's apartments are almost as unpretentious 
as her husband's, and there, one above the other, they lived 
their long married life, under the same roof but practically a 
world apart. Their daughter Louise, the Duchess of Baden, 
had her rooms more attractively furnished, and the suite of 
their daughter-in-law, the Empress Frederick, shows somewhat 




EMPRESS AUGUSTA, WIFE OF WILLIAM I. 



BABELSBURG 213 

more taste, but the whole house was unquestionably not fur- 
nished to surpass more lordly dwellings, but merely for a com- 
fortable home for a hard-working man. There in the quiet of 
nature he rested from toil and surrounded by an unbroken 
stillness and peace he felt less the burden of his enormous 
responsibilities. 



SOME ATTRACTIONS OF PARIS 



Some Attractions of Pans 

^^ T NFORMATION now is vulgarly common," and knowl- 

I edge may be acquired by merely reading advertise- 
ments. Pictures of Paris' fine buildings, as familiar 
to the stay-at-homes as to the travelers, recall the story told of 
a man who praised some views of Constantinople: 

"Very like," he said, "very like," although when questioned, 
acknowledged he had never been there himself, but had had a 
■brother who always had a great mind to go. 

There are undoubtedly people who do not enjoy Paris, who 
are quite insensible to its charms and remain non-conductors 
of its fascinations, but the fault is more often in the state of 
their mind or digestion than in any lack of interesting things 
to be seen. 

Then, of course, there is always the patriotic element to 
deny its beauty with the oft reiterated exclamation: "America's 
good enough for me!" and one American family hurried home 
last autumn because the son had been made president of a 
foot-ball team. Naturally the world's masterpieces faded into 
nothingness at the prospect of winning such coveted laurels. 

Accommodations are provided for all tastes. The exclu- 
sive go to the Hotel Ritz, where the few guests pay for the 
many who cannot afford to go. The splendor-loving now go to 
the Elysee Palace Hotel, where the immovable, pompous 
lackies, in knee breeches and silver chains, are so far above 
attending to your wants that they evidently think: "They also 
serve who only stand and wait." 

The old Continental still holds its former patrons who 
prefer to go "where they are known," although the comfortable 

[217] 



218 RAMBLES ABROAD 

Regina now attracts Americans who compare it favorably with 
New York. The quantity of new hotels in Paris is only ex- 
ceeded by the number of pensions, where "enough is as good 
as a feast" — ^^in spite of the fact that the complaining guests 
would prefer the feast. The Hotel Bristol and the L'i\.thenee 
are pronounced excellent, and in fact there are hotels 
enough for any one wishing to change weekly during a year's 
stay. 

The students who can afford neither hotel nor pension live 
usually happily, if not sumptuously, on nothing a year, and buy 
from the street venders just enough to satisfy the appetite, 
until, with a franc earned or borrowed, they may dine with the 
delight of a Beau Brummell at a cheap cafe. 

The best part of a true Parisian's day is his dinner, and the 
cafes are so crowded every night one would think their motto: 
"Do not put off until tomorrow what you can eat today." The 
expert chefs use their art to disguise ordinary dishes, so that 
everything is served a la masquerade, and general indigestibles 
covered with "soothing sauce" are eaten regardless of their 
heart-burn flavor. Everywhere is the spirit, "Let us eat, 
drink and be merry," and though it shortens their days it 
lengthens their nights. 

At the Tour d'Argent, Frederic prepares his famous pressed 
duck and takes daily as much pains with it as an artist would 
bestow upon his supreme effort. It is so picturesque to see the 
white-haired old man anxiously basting before you the savory 
morsels, that the feast for the eyes is as pleasing as that later 
to the palate. 

The Cafes Voisin, Cuban and the Cafe de Paris rival each 
other in their delicacies. Each restaurant has its own special 
piece de resistance. At Marguery's, on the Boulevard, the 
fillet of sole is unsurpassed, while Durand has the reputation 
of cooking eggs in every way known to man. At Duval's 



SOME ATTRACTIONS OF PARIS 221 

numerous places everything is standard, and one is sure of 
procuring a good meal at a comparatively low price. 

The Cafes de Madrid and Armenonville have held a long 
sway in Paris, and now as the custom of five o'clock tea is 
rapidly growing, many distinguished-looking women are found 
in the afternoon at Paillard's and Rumpelmeyer's. Fuller's 
little American place has a perennial patronage, but every 
season a different cafe is in vogue. They spring up with 
mushroom rapidity, and unless, like the more fortunate they 
have some past tradition to hold the public interest, they are 
in favor only as long as the whim of fashion lasts. 

You will never know until you visit London how near you 
can go to another cab and yet not touch it, nor until you are in 
Paris how many times a day you can collide with another cab 
and not be killed. The cochers are often more like brutes 
than their horses. They are no respecters of persons, and in 
the usual exchange of words when they are not paid enough, it 
is just as well so few travelers understand what they say. 
Their voices alone suggest a revolution. After a collision 
with another cab, a cocher will shout back all kinds of insults 
to the other cabby who has promptly driven off, and though 
far out of hearing, the irate cocher continues his shouting just 
for his own satisfaction, until the affair assumes dramatic com- 
plications. With the hundreds of automobiles ploughing 
unmercifully through the crowds one needs as many eyes as 
Argus before crossing the streets, and timid women reach with 
sighs of relief the little life-saving stations in the middle of the 
boulevards, where they try to collect enough courage to leave 
these little islands and plunge again into the sea of con- 
fusion. 

If there is transmigration of the soul no one would care to 
return to Paris as a horse. There is a society here now similar 
to our Humane Society, but the beating goes on with such 



222 RAMBLES ABROAD 

unabated force that one wonders if the society has grown 
weary in well doing. 

Any one with a little money may take a cab, but it requires 
intelligence to reach one's destination in a bus. Their omnibus 
system is considered by the Parisians absolutely perfect, and 
covers the city's entire territory. It is often one's experience 
that the busses go everywhere except where one wants to be. 
If you do not go to the station to wait the next bus with the 
expectant crowd, your efforts to stop one along the streets will 
make you as ridiculous as a comic valentine. It requires the 
nimble feet of a premiere danseuse to mount to the top, and 
skill is more required than grace. 

One could go to a different church almost every Sunday 
in the year, these edifices are so numerous. Notre Dame 
is, of course, the favorite, and has been the scene of so many 
magnificent celebrations it would be interesting to see even if 
it were not architecturally beautiful. The Madeleine, with its 
wonderfully adorned bronze doors, is the church of the aristoc- 
racy, and the music is exceptionally good. It is lighted from 
above, and as there are no side windows, with the enormous 
crowds, the air is stifling, and ushers are often kept busy with 
fainting women. 

La Trinite is especially noted for its fine organist, M. 
Guilmant, while the rococo St. Roch and St. Eustache are 
always visited by sightseers, and the latter on Good Friday 
has the best music in Paris. The most imposing church just 
finished, of the Sacre Coeur, situated on a height, is visible 
from all parts of Paris, and many brave the climb up Mont- 
martre to see its vast interior. 

St. -Germain TAuxerrois, opposite the Louvre, defies time. 
Its old bell that rang the signal for the death of the Huguenots 
in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, is now owned by the 
Comedie Francaise and is still rung whenever "Charles IX." is 



SOME ATTRACTIONS OF PARIS 



225 



played. Dr. Morgan's American Episcopal church has a large 
congregation, and our countryman, Dr. Thurber, greatly en- 
deared himself to his people who go regularly to the little 
church in the Rue de Berri. The Russian church is a little gem 
and the exquisite decorations always cause exclamations of 
admiration. There is no organ, and while a portion of the 
finely-drilled choir sing the accompaniment, the rest sing the 




THE MADELEINE 



air, and the resulting harmony could not be surpassed in an 
angel choir. 

When leaving the Russian church it is customary to walk 
or drive through the Park Monceau, in which are situated some 
of the finest French homes, among others that of M. Menier, 
the so-called Baron de Chocolat. In the Faubourg St. Germain, 
aristocracy, having taken root, refuses, in spite of encroaching 
trade, to move over on the plutocratic Champs Ely sees. The 
Countess de Castellane's home, in imitation of the Petit 



226 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



Trianon, is the center of the curious gaze, while the houses of 
the late Ex-Queen Isabella of Spain, and the Rothschild brothers, 
receive their share of public attention. The fine residence of 
Dr. Evans, the American dentist who assisted Empress 
Eugenie in her flight, was leased to the state during the Expo- 
sition of 1900, and known as the Palais de Sovereigns, was the 
abode for all royal guests of the Republic. 




STE. CHAPELLE, AND PALAIS DE JUSTICE 



In the old part of Paris stands the Palais de Justice, the 
law courts, on the site of the ancient palace of the early kings 
which was their dwelling-place before the Louvre was built. 
Down below in the Conciergerie, the cell of Marie Antoinette, 
now a chapel, and that of Robespierre are shown once a week. 
The old Ste. Chapelle, close at hand, reminds one of Hillis' 
remark that Gothic architecture is a petrified prayer. It 



SOME ATTRACTIONS OF PARIS 



229 



was Louis IX. who erected it as a receptacle for the Lord's 
crown of thorns and other presumably holy relics he had pur- 
chased during his crusade, and its antique stained glass win- 
dows, recently restored, reflect the richest possible tints. 

The Louvre, so long used as a royal residence, represents 
the work of scores of architects, the generosity of dozens of 
kings, to say nothing of the taxes of many generations of 
people. It is now considered the finest museum in the world, 
and it requires two hours merely to walk through it, even 
though not stopping. The Venus de Milo holds her court down 
stairs amid hundreds 
of other priceless 
statues, while the 
paintings up - stairs 
recall the day that 
the great painter 
Millet, arriving an 
unknown country 
boy in Paris, said he 
was sure when he 
entered Paradise he 
could experience no louvre 

more ecstatic sensation than when he saw those miles of 
pictures for the first time. 

In the Luxemburg Museum the modern paintings and 
statues are placed, as an artist must be dead ten years before 
his work is transferred to the Louvre. In the Palace of the 
Luxemburg the Senate has its meetings, but it was originally 
built as a home for Marie de Medici to console her for leaving 
the Pitti Palace in Florence, and Rubens was then commanded 
to paint for it those numerous pictures of her life that now 
adorn the walls of the Louvre. 

The Place de la Concorde has had a remarkable existence. 




230 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



Louis XIV. 's modest equestrian statue, surrounded with 
figures representing Justice, Strength, and Wisdom, caused a 
passing wit to inscribe beneath it: "Here we see Vice on 
horseback, and Virtue on foot," and the Revolution speedily 
removed the whole statue. It has been said that columns in 
France should be put up on hinges that they might be more 
readily taken down! 




L'ARC DE TRIOMPHE 



, To celebrate Marie Antoinette's wedding, elaborate fire- 
works were to be set off here, but as they exploded unexpect- 
edly, this square became the scene of a frightful panic — an evil 
omen, people said, for the young bride's future. The guillo- 
tine, devised by Dr. Guillotin, stood too in the Place de la 
Concorde to do its ghastly work, and Marie Antoinette, Louis 
XVI., Robespierre, Charlotte Corday and Mme. Roland all 



SOME ATTRACTIONS OF PARIS 



231 



perished on this spot. In the center, at present, is the Obelisk 
of Luxor, and though the fountains play daily on each side, as 
Chateaubriand said: "All the water in the world would not 
suffice to wash away the blood shed there." 

Statues representing the large cities of France surround 
the square like a guard, but since the Franco-Prussian war that 
of Strassburg has 
been draped in black. 
It is significant that 
after their loss the 
French did not tear it 
down — the score be- 
tween France and 
Germany is not quite 
settled and many hope 
one day to recover 
that city. 

The old land- 
marks of the Boule- 
vards, the Porte St. 
Denis, and the Porte 
St. Martin, were 
erectedby Louis XIV. 
in memory of his 
Dutch and German ^^^'^ ^'^ napoleon, in les invaodes 

victories, but the Arc de Triomphe is the finest arch in the world. 
It is over one hundred and fifty feet in height, and Napoleon 
built it to commemorate his ninety-six battles. In a most mod- 
est way he ordered a figure of Fame on one side, with a trumpet 
to proclaim afar his victories, while opposite History writes 
them down, and Victory crowns him! Only royalty is allowed 
to drive under this arch, consequently during the Republic the 
main passage is barred with a chain. 




232 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



In an unbroken line one can see from L'Arc de Triomphe 
down to Napoleon's other Arc du Carrousel in the Tuileries 
Gardens, one of the finest vistas in the world. When the de- 
feated Emperor, departing for St. Helena, took his last look 
at these then unfinished mockeries of his triumph, another pang 
must have been added to his downfall. But his return was 
unprecedented among all his triumphal entries into Paris. It 






NAPOLEON'S TOMB 



was in the reign of Louis Philippe that his remains were 
brought from St. Helena to be laid in the Hotel des Invalides, 
and it was one of the greatest days ever known in the city. As 
the great doors of the Invalides were thrown open to admit the 
coflfin, the old Chamberlain, as in former days of Napoleon's 
reign, announced unexpectedly in a loud voice: "The Emper- 
or!" and the surprised crowds were as startled as if the living 
man had entered. He lies there now in a red granite sarco- 
phagus, with his brothers, Joseph and Jerome, nearby, guarded 
by a nation. 



SOME MORE ATTRACTIONS OF 
PARIS 



Some More Attractions of Pans 

PARIS never sleeps. The crowd on the boulevards during 
the day is only equaled later by that great mass of 
people who, like somnambulists, walk in the night. 
The innumerable artificial lights make a good substitute for 
the sun, and the nocturnal glare was once described by a little 
boy who said one evening: "Why, its just as light out as a 
feather!" 

The streets draw one forth like a magnet; it is almost im- 
possible to withstand their attractions, and aimlessly carried 
along with the human ocean one can appreciate the remark of 
a Swedish king that he longed to renounce his kingdom to go 
back to the life of a Paris boulevardier. 

Rich and poor, good and bad, prince and bourgeois, thieves 
and grisettes all saunter along together, and where they are 
going is as difficult an enigma as whence they all came. Like 
the lilies, they apparently neither toil nor spin, yet they are 
arrayed in a way that would make Joseph's coat of many colors 
pass unnoticed among them. 

Places of amusement are as numerous as the churches. So 
much has been said of the cost and beauty of the Grand Opera 
House that many upon first seeing it are disappointed. Too 
much gold work is the usual criticism of the interior, but the 
beauty of the marble stairway, with its alabaster balustrades 
and the richly decorated foyer awe even the critics, while the 
enthusiastic Parisians consider it one one of the wonders of 
the world. 

The Opera Comique has a fine modern auditorium and the 
performances given are far superior to our ideas of comic 

[235J 



236 RAMBLES ABROAD 

opera. One has the advantage of hearing there, at prices far 
more reasonable than for grand opera, some of the best music 
written. 

The Theatre Francais has a stock company, the Comedie 
Francaise, unrivaled for excellence. It is called the House of 
Moliere because it w^as that actor-playwright who combined, at 
an early date, several little troops under his own name, and 
Louis XIV. added brilliancy to the initial performance in their 
new theatre by the glory of his royal presence. The company 
has retained its title through all succeeding generations, and 
in the winter of 1900-01, when its rebuilt edifice was finished, 
President Loubet copied, as nearly as possible, the way in 
which the Grand Monarch had opened the original building. 
Owing to the former fire no expense has been spared to make 
this theatre fire-proof, and the heavy marble pedestals support- 
ing valuable statues are on wheels that in time of danger they 
may be quickly rolled out of the room. The best actors and 
actresses of France have been trained in this Comedie Fran- 
caise, and when attending one is sure of a finished performance 
with no little detail neglected. It is subsidized by the govern- 
ment and the retired players are pensioned. 

Mme. Bernhardt used to criticize severely M. Clairtie, the 
director, because he repeated over and over the old dramas; she 
declared under his management no innovations were introduced 
and nothing done for the progress of art. Mme. Bernhardt 
does not believe in letting well enough alone, for as there is 
no such thing as standing still, she thinks that if one is not 
going forward one must unconsciously be drifting backward. 

The majority of Paris theatres are old, badly ventilated 
and heavy looking, but the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt is a 
pleasant exception. It is light in tone, well arranged, and in 
American fashion ladies are asked to remove their hats. 
With this exception and at the Opera, where those on the main 



SOME MORE ATTRACTIONS OF PARIS 237 

floor are requested to wear evening dress, hats usually assert 
their rights, and feathers wave defiance in many of the other 
theatres. 

When Cardinal Richelieu wore not only the scarlet hat 
but virtually the crown of France, he added to his vast palace 
opposite the Louvre a good sized theatre, for the old prelate 
thought it no sin to divide his time between God and the world 
— and the latter usually had the larger share. When Queen 
Anne moved her little son, Louis XIV., into this gorgeous 
Palais-Cardinal its name was changed to Palais-Royal, and 
later it was occupied by the Dukes d'Orleans. King Louis 
Philippe, who was helped to the throne by one revolution and 
driven off by another, lived in it, also Jerome Bonaparte when 
a king without a kingdom; and Philippe Egalite built, to obtain 
more money by its rental, that gallery in whose cheap little 
jewelry shops all is not gold that glitters, and in the many 
second-class cafes the proprietors vie with each other in cheating 
their customers. The palace proper is now occupied by the 
Council of State. 

The markets early in the morning are worth visiting. Even 
raw meats and fish are made to look inviting. In the little 
butcher-shops everything is especially prepared, croquettes are 
breaded ready for cooking, and housekeeping in France is 
almost as delightful as when manna dropped daily from 
heaven. No baking is ever done at home. The rolls and 
bread arrive every morning fresh from the baker's and the 
latter comes in those very long sticks — well named the staff of 
life. 

In the Magasin de Louvre and Bon Marche, down to the 
tiny shops whose entire contents are temptingly displayed in 
the windows, everything that has ever been made can be found. 
The jewelers' dazzling windows in the Rue de la Paix make 
one think all the world's gems on exhibition; the choicest 



238 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



products of all the arts are in Paris, for it is the sample-room 
for the world's trade. 

Before the Tour Eiffel was built, those indefatigable tour- 
ists who want "to get the view," always went up the Column 
Vendome, but as it grew to be a favorite place of suicide no 
one is now allowed to go to the top. Because it is made of 
Russian and Austrian cannons it is often inferred that the name 

came from one of 
Napoleon's battles, 
whereas it really 
comes from the 
square where it 
stands, originally the 
site of the palace of 
the Duke of Ven- 
dome. Although the 
Commune tore it 
down, its bronze 
shaft has been care- 
fully restored. 
Another place to get 
the view is from the 
Tour St. Jacques, 
the only remaining 
COLUMN VENDOME part of au old Gothic 

church, up whose tower Pascal used daily to make those tests 
of atmospheric pressure that made him an authority on that 
subject. 

When the Bastille was torn down, Lafayette sent Wash- 
ington one of the keys, a memento still treasured at Mt. Vernon. 
Walls twenty feet thick did not stop the fury of the enraged 
populace, and during the Revolution the Bastille fell like a 
house of cards. The Column of July stands at present on 




SOME MORE ATTRACTIONS OF PARIS 239 



its site, with a statue of Liberty on the summit, holding a 
broken chain in one hand and a torch in the other. 

The sombre Pantheon was intended to hold the remains of 
Genevieve the saint of Paris, but by a not unusual deflected 
interest one finds her resting-place over in the church of St. 
Etienne du Mont. The Pantheon has been periodically 
changed from a 
church into a temple 
of fame for the great 
men of France. Mira- 
beau, Carnot and Vic- 
tor Hugo lie there, 
and there too are the 
empty tombs of Vol- 
taire and Rousseau. 
Even those who do > 
not care to do any- 
thing so cheerless as 
to visit tombs, go to 
the Pantheon to see 
the fine frescoes just 
finished by the great- 
est painters of the 
day. Jeanne d'Arc 
and many o ther 
French heroes and 
heroines have scenes from their lives depicted on its walls. 

The height of every aspiring Frenchman's ambition is to 
become a member of the Institute. This organization of tal- 
ented men is composed of five academies of which the French 
Academy, comprising the "Forty Immortals," is possibly the 
best known. One often used to see a caricature of Zola knock- 
ing at a door, meant to be that of this Academy, which had 




JEANNE D'ARC AT CORONATION OF CHARLES VII. 
(PANTHEON DECORATION) 



240 RAMBLES ABROAD 

repeatedly denied him admittance. The annual meeting of the 
combined five branches is held every October in the old build- 
ing of the Institute, and as admittance is only by invitation, 
and space limited, a man once said, when waiting outside with 
a crowd, that it was more difficult to get inside than it was to 
be made a member! 

The costumes of the Academiciens are embroidered with 
green palm leaves, and all wear cocked hats. • The meeting is 
conducted with state ceremony and as the distinguished men 
file in, in a body, the escorting soldiers present arms. The old 
Viscomte de Bornier was the most applauded speaker in 1900, 
and the chair made vacant by his death was then offered to one 
of France's greatest writers, Rostand of "Cyrano de Bergerac" 
and "L'Aiglon" fame, while Rene de Bazin's recent election 
is an honor to the Academy as well as to himself. 

The Institute dates back several hundred years, and the 
members enjoy considerable social prestige, but the honor of 
membership is not now so highly estimated as in former years. 
Many famous men have unfortunately been overlooked by it 
until too late. Balzac, Alphonse Daudet and the immortal 
Moliere were never members, but a tardy tribute was paid the 
latter by placing his bust in the Institute a few years ago with 
this apologetic inscription: "Nothing is lacking to his glory, 
but he is lacking to ours." 

Foreigners who think the painted-faced women seen on 
the boulevards who suggest the dressmakers' competitive exhi- 
bitions, and who raise their skirts to such startling heights to 
display their silken petticoats and stockings, any one indeed, 
who thinks these creatures typical French women does the 
noble women of France a great injustice. One can rarely see 
in any country so many distinguished women as in an audience 
at the Institute, when the aristocracy gathers to pay tribute to 
genius. 



SOME MORE ATTRACTIONS OF PARIS 243 

In the same way many sightseers leave with a false idea 
of Parisians' amusements, for most men making the rounds of 
the so-called "sights of Paris," apparently forget that one can 
find places that cater to the low tastes of humanity in every 
city in proportion to its size, and overlooking entirely higher- 
class attractions they depart with the satisfied feeling that they 
have really seen Parisian life. 

The Ecole des Beau Arts is under the Academy of Artists, 
and it is in that school that the gifted pupils are rewarded with 
the Prix de Rome that enables them to remain four years in 
Rome at the expense of the French government. There are 
so many advantages for art students and so many great 
masters located here that Paris rivals Italy in its rank as an 
art center. 

Jean Gobelin's old dye-works on the banks of the Seine 
continue today under government ownership the making of 
those unrivaled tapestries. It is particularly interesting to 
watch the workers. Each one chalks out his design on a screen 
of threads, and with his pattern near at hand then winds his 
shuttle in and out. Twenty-four shades for each color make 
the exquisite blending of tints in their creations, and gobelin 
blue takes its name of course from this factory. Six square 
inches a day is considered a good amount for one worker, and 
beside the tapestries being made, many old pieces are on 
exhibition, so that a visit to this unique establishment is well 
worth one's while. 

The old Musee de Cluny is the headquarters for the glories 
of the past, and mediaeval art reigns here supreme. Furniture 
and tapestries, paintings, porcelains, shoes frotn all countries, 
musical instruments, altar pieces, robes of Knights of the Holy 
Spirit, and the precious Golden Rose from the Pope, are all 
here together. The old building itself is as interesting as its 
contents, and the baths of the Roman Emperors who had on 



244 RAMBLES ABROAD 

this site a palace, are still extant and make a valuable addition 
to the curios. 

Mme. de Sevignee's home, the Hotel Carnavalet, now 
belongs to the city and has been turned into a museum where 
the municipality's antiquities are shown. Among Paris' many 
libraries the Biblioteque Nationale ranks at the head of the 
world's great collections of books and the Hotel de Ville, the 
city hall, is an imposing modern edifice with splendid decora- 
tions inside and out, valuable busts are in all the niches and 
illustrious portraits cover the wall's. 

The spring exhibition of paintings, formerly held in a 
salon of the Louvre, still keeps the name "Salon," although 
now it is held in the Grand Palais. This great building and 
its smaller companion, the Petit Palais, have been left standing 
since the Exposition of 1900 and are found very useful for 
exhibitions and other public spectacles. 

The Grand Prix and the opening of the Salon are tv/o 
events which no one can afford to miss in May. In the last 
few years the Salon has had a would-be rival in the exhibition 
of independent artists called the Salon of the Champs de Mars. 
This competition has been a benefit to both sides, however, and 
the public now has two feasts of the finest pictures of the year. 

The Bourse, or stock exchange, looks on the outside like a 
great temple, and in its enormous hall two thousand men can 
easily mingle. Frenchmen are always excitable, but the 
confusion on this stock exchange would have made the Tower 
of Babel appear quiet and peaceful. 

On Sunday afternoons all Paris drives in the Bois de 
Boulogne, and though there are many fine turnouts they are 
not so numerous as the smart traps seen in London. Street 
cabs are admitted and along side a perfectly-appointed equi- 
page will come a rambling old fiacre which, built to hold three 
comfortably, is often occupied by eight or nine ragged spend- 



SOME MORE ATTRACTIONS OF PARIS 245 

thrifts who give themselves regularly this Sunday treat. It is 
almost impossible to cross the wide Champs Elysees with the 
stream of carriages and motor cars, and the orders of the 
policemen, who look like pigmies, are generally no more 
noticed than if they were toy soldiers. 

The old boatmen, the Parisee, who gave the city its pres- 
ent name, have also furnished its coat of arms — a boat. The 
motto, "Though she goes through many tempests she is never 
overcome," is particularly appropriate for Paris, for in spite of 
the many desperate struggles, after each sacking the noble 
buildings have risen again like the phoenix from its own ashes. 



THE ELYSEE PALACE 



The Elysee Palace 

THE official residence — one could scarcely call it home — 
of the Presidents of France is not shown to the public. 
Even Baedeker, the sight-seer's help in time of trouble, 
suggests no day when it may be visited. The soldiers on duty 
in front of the palace sternly refuse admittance to everyone and, 
unlike other royal abodes, there is no opportunity to see the 
inside unless one receives an invitation to some of the festivi- 
ties. It is one of the oldest buildings in Paris and now stands 
proudly aloof from the finer palaces of the day, as though its past 
traditions more than counterbalanced its present deficiencies. 

Built by Count d'Evreux in 1718, it was later bought by 
Mme. de Pompadour, who lived in it as often as Louis XV. 
would permit. In her day the most magnificent entertainments 
of Paris were given there. Watteau shepherdesses being in 
vogue, the Marquise gave a "fete bergere," when a flock of 
little lambs, nicely combed and beribboned, were led in the 
great salon by fair shepherdesses in satins and lace. Unfortu- 
nately these little lambs saw other little lambs in the mirrors, 
and belying the proverbial meekness of their disposition, they 
attacked their supposed rivals with such vehemence that the 
evening ended abruptly amid broken glass, wounded lambkins 
and fainting women. 

The Marquise left the palace to a son of Louis XV., but it 
soon changed owners again, and Louis XVI. bought it, with all 
its costly furnishings, for two hundred and fifty thousand 
■dollars. Later, during the occupancy of the Duchess de Bour- 
bon, she beautified it so greatly it was given its name at that 
time of Elysee — Bourbon. 

[2491 



250 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



During the Revolution it degenerated into a public garden^ 
where balls, fireworks and balloon ascensions were given on the 
grounds, while gamblers reveled in their sport in the gorgeous 
apartments. 

The next owner was Murat who, with his wife, Napoleon's 
sister Caroline, lived here in a style that quite eclipsed the- 
splendor-loving Emperor. They left it for their kingdom in 
Naples, but the Salon Murat remains today quite as when they 
used it. It is a long, narrow room, poorly lighted by two 

windows, with a 
painting by Vernet 
that represents 
Murat's triumphal 
entrance into 
Naples. Poor 
Murat, his reign was 
soon over, and 
though dead these 
many years it was 
only a short time 
ago that Naples decided he was worthy to be laid to rest 
among her other kings. 

Napoleon occasionally sought refuge here from Court 
fatigue, and Josephine spent the month before her divorce in 
its seclusion, while Queen Hortense stayed here months at a 
time. The chess-table of Napoleon stands just as he left it, 
and after the great Emperor himself was checkmated at 
Waterloo, he went back to the Elysee for a few hours repose. 
On this spot the second abdication was signed, resigning the 
crown he said he had picked from the gutter on the point 
of. his sword! He left the palace for the last time by a side 
way, but the crowd outside the wall saw a state carriage 
drive out through the main entrance, and gazing eagerly 




THE PALACE, FROM THE GARDEN 



THE ELYSEE PALACE 



251 






after it, they did not know until later they had been tricked 
again. 

Next came Wellington to take up his abode in the rooms 
of his vanquished enemy, and later the Elysee fell to the lot of 
Charles X.'s son, the Due de Berry, who was brought back 
here dead after being murdered one night at the Opera. During 
Louis Philippe's reign it was given up to the accommodation of 
different people, who from 
some service done the King 
in his days of need, expected 
shelter in his hour of triumph. 

When Louis Napoleon 
was elected President, he 
chose the Elysee for his offi- 
cial residence, and he waited 
one long anxious night to 
hear the result of his Coup 
d'Etat in the room where 
President Loubet now holds 
his ministerial councils. Of 
course after he became Em- 
peror, Napoleon IIL moved 
to more regal apartments in 
the Tuileries and gave the 
Elysee over to his fiancee, Mile. Eugenie de Montijo. It 
was her home until she drove to Notre Dame to be married. 
In the following year Napoleon and Eugenie made many 
improvements in the palace, and the Empress' bathroom still 
looks very attractive with its walls of mirrors, painted with 
vines and flowers, a copy of one of Marie Antoinette's. But, 
alas, they could not stay in Paris to enjoy the result of their 
efforts— "sufficient unto the day is the leader thereof" in 
France. The old guard who showed me through the building 




M. LOUBET 
PRESIDENT OF FRANCE 



252 RAMBLES ABROAD 

had been in the service of Eugenie at the Tuileries and never 
tired of talking of her charms. 

When he came to an old cheval glass of the Empress', he 
said — with the gallantry of a courtier — that he regretted he 
could not in looking into it see, as she used to, her own beauti- 
ful face. 

During the Exposition of '67, Alexander of Russia 
sojourned here, followed by the Sultan and the Emperor of 
Austria. The King of Sweden and Sophie of Holland 
attended many balls held in the palace, and last but not least, 
with oriental splendor, came the Viceroy of Egypt. With such a 
record of guests, is it surprising the Elysee is proud of its past? 

The old tapestries are undoubtedly its chief treasures. In 
the Salon of Cleopatra one represents the banquet given by 
the Egyptian Queen in honor of Mark Antony, when for dessert 
a priceless pearl was passed to the conquering hero. In the 
room that was Eugenie's bedroom, used as a study by some of 
the Presidents, hangs the original gobelin of Marie Antoinette. 
It has been copied for the French Republic to give the Czarina 
of Russia, a gift exhibited in 1900 at the Exposition, and the 
marvelous sheen of the red velvet gown aroused exclamations 
of delight from the admiring crowds that gazed daily upon it. 

In the study here is a modern revolving book-stand and a 
common office-chair, but the desk of Louis XV. is so richly 
decorated with gold bronze that some of the simple-hearted 
Presidents have thought it too fine for daily use. 

•Napoleon I.'s bedchamber contains the famous tapestry of 
the "Judgment of Paris," in which Mme. de Maintenon had 
objected so strongly to the nudity of the three goddesses that 
she wished the gobelin workers to clothe them! After his 
assassination. President Carnot's body lay in state in that 
room, and for four days the French people filed by in tearful 
homage. 



THE ELYSEE PALACE 



253 



One of the choicest little rooms is the Gray Salon, where 
the hangings and furniture, in the style of the Empire, are in 
pearl satin, embroidered with silver thread. It is now part of 
the suite belonging to one of M. Loubet's sons. 

The Council Room, with its long table and leather chairs, 
contains the portraits repainted under Napoleon III. of his 
contemporary sovereigns, among others the late Queen Vic- 
toria, at the age of twenty, and Pope Pius IX. M. Loubet 




THE COUNCIL ROOM 

presides at the meetings in a chair of Napoleon, with many 
electric buttons near at hand to summon instantly his various 
messengers. 

The state dining-room, with its red hangings embroidered 
in gold, is a dark, dismal place in the daytime and can only be 
used with electric lights. It opens on a winter garden, entirely 
of glass, with green hangings, palms, and beautiful statues. 
Dinner guests are expected to promenade through this garden, 
but its erection was a grave mistake, as it has made all the 



254 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



other rooms on the ground floor too dark to be habitable. 
The Salon Murat is often used as an additional dining-room, 

but during the siege 




SALLE DES FETES 



of Paris it was turned 
into an emergency 
hospital for dressing 
the wounds of the 
victims. 

The Salle des 
Fetes has a finely- 
painted ceiling and 
the walls are hung 
with old tapestries 
representing scenes in the life of Jason and Medea. The 
gobelin portieres are doubly precious for their groundwork of 
gold thread. The most conspicuous object in the room is a 
large marble statue called "Twilight" that is marvelously 
lovely. This room, in which the President receives his guests, 
is not half large enough, and the lack of suitable accommoda- 
tions for the crowds that flock to the Elysee balls is as perplex- 
ing a problem as the inadequate size of our White House. 

The Loubet family usually spend their evenings, when at 
Tiome, in the com- 
fortable billiard- 
room, or in the salon 
on the first floor. In 
the latter the carpets 
and chairs are of ex- 
quisite tapestry, but 
it lacks what Herrick 
called "sweet disor- 
der," as its stiffness 
suggests the old- the grand salon 




THE ELYSEE PALACE 



255 



fashioned best parlor, where comfort was overcome by would- 
'be grandeur. 

On entering the President's dining-room, just as the cloth 
was being laid for his luncheon, it was noticeable how like the 
simple little Sevres centerpiece, holding a few growing flow- 
ers, was to those used daily oil less pretentious American 
tables, and many other little things show his democratic taste. 
From the window one has a fine view of the gardens that ex- 
tend to the Champs Elysees, and the President's garden-par- 
ties are notable features of the summer season in Paris. 

The entrance to 
the palace is en- 
closed in a peculiar 
glass cage, draped 
with crimson velvet 
hangings on which 
are embroidered the 
familiar letters " R. 
F.," the initials, of 
course, of the French 
Republic, but often 
jestingly spoken of as the trade-mark of the Rothschild Freres, 
whose increasing wealth has made them owners of half of Paris. 

There are some celebrated paintings in the palace, and 
most of the bric-a-brac is well chosen, but here and there, 
along side a rare work of art, will stand a hideous ornament in 
impossible taste, with as great a difference between it and its 
neighbors as there has been between the various royal and 
bourgeois occupants of the palace. Yet, in spite of its incon- 
gruities and discomforts, the old Elysee challenges ones inter- 
est still. It has seen so many changes and sheltered such 
illustrious personages that as one walks now through the 
rooms one cannot be inseasible of a fragrance that still lingers 
about it of the splendor of its past. 




THE PRESIDENT'S DINING-ROOM 



THE CASTLES OF FRANCOIS I. 



Tke Castles of F 



rancois 



L 



IT has been said that the reign of Francois I. educated 
Europe. Be that as it may, it was that French monarch 
who made culture fashionable and, though he lived back 
in the Middle Ages, one finds in France today almost as many 
souvenirs that still recall 
his name as those left by 
Louis XIV. and Napoleon, 
while a visit to his castles 
through Touraine makes 
an ideal driving or motor 
tour. 

When young he was a 
beau ideal of knighthood, 
handsome, brave and 
polished. He was cleverer 
than his contemporary, 
Charles V. of Spain, more 
elegant than Henry VIII. 
of England — and more 
profligate than both put to- 
gether. This was the time 
of the "Old Regime," the 
Renaissance and the Reformation. Each of these young rulers 
enjoyed despotic power, and their reigns are marked by great 
events, but all three died prematurely old — more depraved than 
princely. 

Francois' court was noted for its splendor, for he attracted 
the most beautiful women and most gallant men of the day. 

[259] 




FRANCOIS I. 



260 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



The least conspicuous figure there was his wife, Queen Claude. 
She never attempted to understand state affairs, but busied 
herself with her embroidery, and after a few years of shameful 
neglect she obligingly died, leaving the King too glad to be 

rid of her to reflect on the 
fact that he had probably 
broken her heart. 

Diane de Poitiers made 
her first appearance at 
Court to beg the King's 
pardon for her father, then 
a prisoner. Her beauty, 
afterward world famous, 
so charmed the sensuous 
monarch that the father 
was freed and the daughter 
became the captive — albeit 
a most willing one. 

She assumed the 
greatest power at Court, 
and when she realized that 
Francois had tired of her, 
she made a successful onslaught on the foolish heart of the 
King's young son. It was that admirer who, when he became 
Henry II., gave Diane the beautiful castle of Chenonceaux. 
This gift, the King said, was made because her husband had 
died unrewarded for his services to the crown. He was evi- 
dently a man who did not let his right hand know what his left 
hand was doing, and it was never quite clear to any one but 
the enraptured King just what those services were. 

Francois had made of this castle one of the finest buildings 
in France, and Diane added the wing that is built right 
across the little river. It was there the fair chatelaine said 




CLAUDE, WIFE OF FRANCOIS I. 



THE CASTLES OF FRANCOIS I. 



261 



she threw her wishes out one window and her regrets out the 
other. No one however coveted her neighbor's house more 
than Catherine de Medici did in regard to her rival's possessions, 
and as soon as the King died she turned out Diane with the 
utmost haste, and then fre- 
quently honored Chenon- 
ceaux herself with lengthy 
visits. 

It ranks as one of the 
most beautiful dwellings 
ever built by man, and 
with its sloping grounds, 
noble old trees and peace- 
ful little river, it has a nat- 
ural setting particularly 
charming. It is more a 
home and less a fortress 
than many of the other 
castles of the Middle Ages, 
and an additional attraction 
was the fact that it alone of 
all Catherine de Medici's 
castles was free from the stain of blood. She would send for 
Tasso, the favorite poet from Italy, and taking him out to Chenon- 
ceaux would seat herself in the garden with her beautiful 
women about her and listen for hours to his rhapsodies. She 
knew well that to hold her sway she must dazzle the people, 
and every day some wondrous entertainment was given. 
Writers say one night fireworks in such quantities were 
displayed on this little river Cher, it seemed the whole stream 
was on fire, and then suddenly a long shower of beautiful 
flowers surprised the delighted guests. Thus with feasting 
and merriment here her dark deeds were temporarily forgotten. 




DIANE DE POITIERS 



262 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



Among its guests the old castle can boast besides Tasso, 
of Voltaire, Rousseau, Anne of Austria, "La Grande Mile.," 
and many other notables. It is but a few hours distant from 
Paris and on certain days the present owners open it to visitors. 

The gorgeous room of Francois L is quite the most attrac- 
tive, and another very interesting one is called "the room of the 




CHATEAU DE CHENONCEAUX 



four queens," as is was occupied successively by Catherine 
de Medici, Mary Queen of Scots, Margaret of Navarre and 
Louise of Lorraine. The gallery has had many of its best 
pictures removed, but the old tapestries and curious decorations 
are well worth seeing. 

After the death of the German Emperor in 1519, three 
claimants came forward for his throne, but in spite of 
much bribing, the Electors at Frankfort decided in favor of 
Charles V. of Spain, the late Emperor's grandson. Chagrined 



THE CASTLES OP^JF^RANCOIS I. 263 

at his defeat, Francois then determined to form an alliance with 
Henry VIII. of England, and at their meeting, which resulted 
in naught, such a display was made by both sovereigns, one 
trying to outdo the other, that Guines is still spoken of as the 
Field of the Cloth of Gold. The pomp and regal attire of their 
retinues that day rivaled in brilliancy the famous meeting of 
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Meanwhile the subtle 
Charles had leagued with Wolsey, the power behind the English 
throne, and Henry was easily persuaded by him to form an 
alliance with Spain instead of France. 

Then disappointed Francois began a war with Charles and 
was defeated and taken prisoner at Pavia. The only redeeming 
feature was that the Spanish soldiers tore his coat into bits for 
souvenirs, spoiling his fine raiment, but pleasing his vanity. 
After that battle he wrote his mother the well-known lines that 
rearranged to interest posterity have come down to us as: 
"All is lost save honor." He proved later he had none to 
lose. 

It is customary now when driving in the Bois de Boulogne 
in Paris to stop for refreshments at the Cafe de Madrid. It 
marks the spot where Francois, on his return from Spain, built 
the Chateau of Madrid, that was so ruthlessly destroyed during 
the Revolution. In that storehouse of the past, the old Musee 
de Cluny in Paris, one is still shown the exquisite enamels that 
ornamented its outside walls — the largest specimens of such 
work in existence. 

From the time of his sojourn in Spain and Italy, Francois 
became the most enthusiastic patron of art. He brought 
Leonardo da Vinci and other artists back to France with him, 
and gave the painter a home near his own castle of Amboise. 
He is buried there in the little chapel of the castle whose 
delicate stone carving makes it a gem of architecture, and a 
most appropriate resting place for a great genius. It is dedi- 



264 



RAMBLES ABROAD 




cated to the memory of the sacred hunter Hubert, and its 
exquisite daintiness is in refreshing contrast to the sombre 
gloom of the rest of the castle. The designs are carved as 
minutely as frost pictures on a window-pane in winter, and the 

stag that appeared with 
the crucifix to the hunter 
Hubert is impressive even 
in our miracle-disputing 
days. 

At Amboise the King 
entertained his old adver- 
sary, Charles V., when he 
stopped on a friendly visit, 
and the description of the 
festivities reads like a fairy 
tale. The castle is situated 
on a height, and knowing 
the Emperor disliked to 
climb steps, the King had 
an inclined plane made in 
one of the towers, by 
which Charles could ascend to his apartments in a carriage 
without taking a step. At Amboise Charles VHI. of France 
was later born and eventually killed here, according to popu- 
lar stories, by hitting his head against the top of a low 
doorway. It was here too that a few years later Catherine de 
Medici invited Mary Queen of Scots to come out on one of the 
balconies to see the great massacre that delighted the blood- 
thirsty soul of the Queen Mother. To punish the conspirators 
against the young King Francis I., and to thwart their plans to 
get him from her control, she had them strung up on the 
balcony, here to hang until her vengeance was satisfied and 
then the rope was cut and the body dropped and buried itself 



LEONARDO DA VINCI 



THE CASTLES OF FRANCOIS I. 



265 



in the river Loire below. The Queen Mother, however, in her 
enjoyment of such sights, had not counted upon the results, for 
the dead bodies, piled up in such horrible numbers, made the 
air so foul in a few days that Amboise was no longer safe as a 
residence, and finally Catherine was obliged to move the pitiful 
young Francis aud the beautiful Mary Stuart to a healthier 
habitation. 




MAISON DE FRANCOIS PREMIER. 



Another association with Amboise was the long imprison- 
ment here of Abd-el-Kadir, the heroic Arabian chief taken 
prisoner in the French war under Napoleon IIL The castle 
underwent extensive restorations under Louis Philippe and is 
now owned by the Orleans family. 

The Louvre that Philippe Augustus had erected was more 
a stronghold than a palace, and after tearing it down Francois 
began the erection of the fine facade that still bears his name, 



266 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



and he bought the land, now the Garden of the Tuileries, for 
the erection of a subtirban villa for his mother. 

■ Some of the Raphael paintings that hang in the Louvre 
today were done at his request. He covered his walls with 
masterpieces, his tapestries were the finest made; Titian, who 
never saw the King, was commanded to paint his portrait. 



:!*7^^irr^ 




Thanks to his encouragement, a school of painting was estab- 
lished and the Renaissance spread abroad. He always showed 
favor to men of talent and used to entertain Benvenuto Cellini, 
who covered the royal table with the golden vessels engraven 
by his skill, while Rabelais, Clement Marot and other wits 
were the King's companions. 

No better example of the Renaissance architecture can be 
found than in that old house that still stands in Paris, called 
the Maison de Francois Premier. Some claim it was brought, 



THE CASTLES OF FRANCOIS I. 



269 



stone by stone, from Fontainebleau, its original site, to 
lodge the King's sister, Margaret, the Pearl of the Valois, 
but more likely it was intended for a Paris home for one of the 
Court beauties. 

Francois I.'s facade of the old castle of Blois far exceeds 
the efforts of his successors. A later owner, Gaston d'Orleans, 




ROOM AT BLOIS WHERE DUC DE GUISE WAS ASSASSINATED 

by his would-be improvements nearly ruined the whole build- 
ing. Louis XIL's side he has marked with his crest, the 
crown and porcupine, while we know the rooms of that fasci- 
nating Queen Anne of Brittany by her emblem, the ermine. 

In Francois' wing one sees cut in everywhere his device, 
the salamander, with his motto: "I am nourished and I die in 
fire." Even the plumes of the King's hat were fastened with 
a jeweled salamander, and one finds it like a trade-mark on 
everything he created. His beautiful carved open stairway 



270 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



remains in our day unsurpassed, for the stone carving looks 
like lace work. 

But the fame of Blois is greater than its beauty. It is 
celebrated as the place of murder of the Duke de Guise. The 
door is shown through which the effeminate Henry III. came 
to gloat over the body of his enemy. Shocked, however, at 
sight of his victim, he started back, exclaiming: "My God, he 

looks greater dead than 
alive!" 

On the floor above, Cath- 
erine de Medici had her 
apartments. In one room 
the walls are covered with 
two hundred carved wooden 
panels, no two alike. Each 
one opens by a secret spring, 
and in these niches Catherine 
kept those poisons she found 
more convincing than argu- 
ments. She died here in 
1589. 

Another death - chamber 
shown at Blois is that of 
Anne of Brittany, the only 
woman to be twice Queen of France, for after her gain in 
the loss of her first husband, Charles VIII., she promptly 
married his successor, her old lover, Louis XII. A window 
is shown where Marie de Medici escaped, after her son 
thought affairs of si ate would be more benefited by her absence 
than by her presence and confined her in this prison-home, and 
here too Anne of Austria brought her boy, little Louis XIV., for 
safe-keeping when the cannonading of the Fronde made Paris 
too dangerous for real comfort. In addition to its having been 




CATHERINE DE MEDICI'S STUDY AT BLOIS 
The Panels Cover Secret Niches 



THE CASTLES OF FRANCOIS I. 



273 



sought as a strong place of refuge in rebellions, it has also 
been the home of beauty and pleasure, for Mme. de Pompadour 
loved to preside over her worshipping Court here in imitation 
of the real queens before her. 

There is no railway and one must drive from Blois to 
Chambord, a distance covered in about two hours. It was 
Francois' favorite castle, where from its wonderful roofs he 




CHAMBORD, DOUBLE SPIRAL STAIRWAY 



could watch the hunts, and its carved chimneys make one wish 
our modern builders could reproduce the masterpieces of their 
predecessors. 

With its doors concealed in panels, and its secret stairways, 
Chambord is typical of the King's intriguing life. It is situ- 
ated in a park of twenty square miles, has over four hundred 
rooms, and the stables used to accommodate twelve hundred 
horses. The well-known double spiral stairway is a perplexing 



274 RAMBLES ABROAD 

surprise for all visitors, as people may ascend and descend 
at the same time, occasionally seeing each other, but never 
meeting. 

At Chambord, Moliere gave before the Court his first pre- 
sentation of the "Bourgeois Gentilhomme." The castle was 
given at a later date by Louis XV. to his father-in-law, King 
Stanislas of Poland, and afterward to that interesting roue- 
warrior, Marshal Saxe. 

After the Revolution it was purchased by subscription and 
presented to the young Duke of Bordeau, who took from it his 
title of Count of Chambord. The castle is so immense and the 
rooms with their vaulted ceilings so marvelous that there is no 
more satisfactory edifice in Touraine to visit to give one an 
idea of the magnificence of the French Court at that period. 
Even now, in the silence of abandonment, it is sublime. 

Not content with these vast buildings, Francois completely 
changed Fontainebleau, and his bedroom and gallery there 
today are most imposing in their richness. In the palaces of 
St. -Germain, Loches, and Rambouillet, he made elaborate 
alterations; like Nebuchadnezzar, he could boast of what he 
had created by the might of his power, but in his old age how 
the strength of these buildings must have mocked the shallow 
character of the royal builder. 

For twenty years he had carried on war, and the money 
that should have been spent for the soldiers' pay was lavished 
on dissolute women. The whole country was impoverished. 
The people had no voice, the King's wish was law. He had 
ill treated two good wives and at last, disgusted with all 
women, he wrote on the window-pane at Chambord: "Often 
woman varies; he is a fool who trusts her." 

His persecution of the Reformers was one of his greatest 
errors, but he should be judged by comparison with his 
contemporaries. Henry VIH. was chopping off his wives' 



THE CASTLES OF FRANCOIS I. 277 

heads, and Charles V., having weakly abdicated, amused 
himself in a monastery by rehearsing his own funeral. 

If you would know the French King as he really was, read 
Victor Hugo's "Le Roi s'amuse," or see Verdi's opera 
of Rigoletto, and then weighing his vices against his 
virtues, remember he was a product of his' time. Look among 
any collection of miniatures and you will see the immortal 
faces of his favorites. He left palaces sumptuously built and 
gorgeously furnished, but the King who had not a single 
moral with which to bless himself, will be looked upon con- 
temptuously until his buildings have crumbled to dust. 



A GLIMPSE OF WINDSOR CASTLE 



A Glimpse of Windsor Castle 

THE vast change that King Edward made in Windsor 
Castle before making it his home, caused wide-spread 
comment and a general hope that the so-called im- 
provements would not disturb those sumptuous old rooms of 
other sovereigns whose historic memories can never be suc- 
cessfully replaced by modern splendor. 

Windsor Castle, one of the largest and most magnificent 
royal residences in the world, has been, during the seven hun- 
dred years of its existence, prison, fortress and palace. Its 
dungeons proved foul and fatal to many an agonized captive; 
its drawbridges, portcullis, and thick walls made it an impreg- 
nable feudal fortress, while even today its wells and under- 
ground passages make it quite independent of the outside 
world, and it could accommodate an army that would be able 
to withstand there a long seige. As a birthplace of English 
princes, the last resting-place of kings, the scene of the origin 
of the Order of the Garter, and Queen Victoria's constant home, 
it has been the background of English history for centuries. 

The name comes from Windleshore, an old Saxon word, 
suggesting there the winding of the Thames river. Edward 
the Confessor gave the whole estate to the monks of West- 
minster, from whom William the Conqueror bought it when he 
determined to build a mighty castle. Norman kings then 
hunted the wild boar in its forests that time and the gardener's 
skill have now changed into a quiet Italian park. Here Ed- 
ward III. celebrated his splendid tournaments. Queen Elizabeth 
gave her gay fetes, and Queen Anne was here when the wel- 
come message came from Marlborough announcing his victory 

[281] 



282 



RAMBLES ABROAD 



of Blenheim; while at Windsor too a poor Scotch king sighed 
for his freedom for many a long year, when imprisoned in its 
boundaries. 

It is about an hour's distance by train from London, and 
the most conspicuous part of the enormous building is the 
round tower, or massive keep, that was used as a dungeon 




ROUND TOWER, WINDSOR 



until 1660. From the battlements there is a most remarkable 
view enabling one to see into dozens of other shires. 

The east front is the least familiar part of the castle, be- 
cause it contains the private apartments, and is rarely shown 
a visitor, while only a royal carriage is allowed through the 
gateway on that side. Consequently the entrance best known 
is by the porter's lodge, and by visiting it on certain days dur- 
ing their Majesties' absence, the state apartments are shown 
sightseers. 

On assuming control. King Edward commanded that the 
suite of his father, closed since the day of his death, be at last 



A GLIMPSE OF WINDSOR CASTLE 283 

thrown open and refurnished, so that the gloom that hovered 
over these locked doors has now vanished. Queen Alexandra 
occupies several of the rooms known formerly as Queen Vic- 
toria's private apartments, which she has had done over in a 
lighter and more modern style, and as she is noted for her 
exquisite taste, her possessions are always well chosen. She 




EAST FRONT, WINDSOR CASTLE 



has now for her own use the curious silver toilet service which 
belonged to Queen Anne over two hundred years ago, in which 
is included a long silver-framed cheval glass of unusual work- 
manship and beauty. 

In the Audience Room hang valuable old tapestries of 
Esther and Mordecai, which are continued on the walls of the 
Presence Chamber, and Janet's old poi;trait in this room of 
Marie Stuart is as familiar to us from prints as is the face of 
an old friend. 

In the Guard Room are the weapons of all ages, and a 
shield of gold and silver presented on the Field of the Cloth 



284 



RAMBLES ABROAD 




of Gold by Francois I. to Henry VIIL Of course it is said to 
be the work of that master goldsmith, Benvenuto Cellini, but 
had he done all the pieces attributed to him in Europe, he 
would have put to shame the busy bees, and the industrious 
ants could well be reproached for laziness. 

In the Guard Room too are England's three great heroes, 
Marlborough, Nelson, and Wellington, and Nelson's statue 

stands on a pedestal 
made from the mast 
of the ship on which 
he said, "England 
expects every man 
to do his duty," and 
then paid with his 
own life the price of 
her victory. 

St. George's Hall 
-is overotwo hundred 
feet in length, with a table down the center hospitably long 
enough to seat the unexpected. The walls and ceilings are 
paneled, while the latter is richly emblazoned with the arms of 
every knight who ever belonged to the Garter, and fine por- 
traits of its presiding sovereigns alternate between the win- 
dows, with spears, helmets and shields. Banners are hung all 
along the hall, for it was iatended especially for the use of 
the Order of the Garter. 

In the Grand Reception Room is the tapestry of Jason and 
Medea, the finest Gobelin that Charles X. of France could find 
to send to George IV. in acknowledgment of the English 
monarch's hospitality to the two unfortunate brothers of Louis 
XVI. The room is quite French in style, with Louis XVI. fur- 
niture of gilt and tapestry. A great malachite vase, sent by a 
Czar of Russia, has for a rival in one's interest the two 



THRONE ROOM, WINDSOR CASTLE 



A GLIMPSE OF WINDSOR CASTLE 



285 




immense granite vases given by Queen Luise's husband, 
Frederick William III. of Prussia. At Windsor too is treasured 
the finest example of Sevres china in existence, a dessert service 
made for Louis XVI. 

In the Throne Room stands the Ivory throne from India 
which is carved just as finely as those little ivory card-cases one 
usually sees^hoicely guarded under glass. The portraits by 
Lawrence and Gains- 
borough, the glisten- 
ing crystal chande- 
liers and the rich 
brocaded blue velvet 
walls make this room 
one of the most royal 
in the castle. 

In the long cor- 
ridor stands the life- 
size statue of the 
Prince Consort, with that pathetic figure of the Queen clinging 
to him, and underneath are graven these words: "Allured to 
brighter worlds and led the way." All along this passage are 
placed the gifts sent her late Majesty at the Jubilee, including 
rare embroidery from the Emperor of China, monstrous 
feather fans from Africa, and such priceless ornaments as are 
considered worthy a monarch's acceptance. 

The Waterloo Salon which is nearly one hundred feet 
long, serves frequently as a banqueting-hall, and could be 
quickly changed into a theatre for any performance the Queen 
desired to hear. On the walls are the portraits, mostly by 
Sir Thomas Lawrence, of the sovereigns and generals who 
fought in the war that ended in the battle of Waterloo. In 
that hall Queen Victoria once danced with Napoleon III., 
the nephew of the man whose crushing defeat by the 



WATERLOO SALON 



286 



RAMBLES ABROAD 




English a while before had occasioned the naming of the 
room. 

Windsor has an unrivaled collection of paintings, the 
Rubens Room contains eleven of this artist's masterpieces, and 
in the Van Dyke Room hang the best examples of that Dutch 
master, including the well-known portraits of the children of 
Charles I., and of his Queen, Henrietta Maria. 

In the Council 
Room are the old 
painters, Andrea del 
Sarto, Holbein, Ho- 
garth, Rembrandt, 
etc., while in the 
King's Closet hang 
the best works of the 
Dutch school. Be- 
yond the Green 
Drawing - room are 
the Crimson and the White; the magnificent Library abounds 
with rare editions and priceless manuscripts, and one walks 
on forgetting in the beauty of the last room the wonders of 
the one before. 

The Oak Room was often used as a small dining room 
and it is most attractive with its Gothic oaken panels, richly 
ornamented with gold, while the wall tapestry, a present from 
Louis Philippe, recalls the day when the late Queen went down 
the great stairway here to meet him, the only time an English 
monarch ever welcomed a French king to England. 

Luther's old Bible is carefully preserved, the edition of 
Shakespeare owned by Charles L and also his collection of mini- 
atures which, with recent additions, ranks first in the world. 
There are hundreds of other relics handed down from monarch 
to monarch, and the rich furniture, buhl cabinets, rare orna- 



VAN DYKE ROOM' 



A GLIMPSE OF WINDSOR CASTLE 287 



ments encrusted with jewels, the priceless tapestries and old 
gold plate, make Windsor a veritable storehouse of valuables. 

Not the least of these was the old guest-book of Queen 
Victoria, where the signatures now call forth memories of 
dynasties that have been overthrown, and of kings without 
kingdoms, yet the Queen's long reign continued without 
interruption. Four Czars of Russia, an Emperor of Mexico, a 
King of Prussia, and 
three Emperors of 
Germ an y, Louis 
Philippe and Napo- 
leon III. of France, 
the Prince Imperial, 
Pedro of Portugal, 
the Mad Ludwig of 
Bavaria, and nearly 
all the reigning fam- 
ilies of Europe, have 
written their names 
in that book with their own hands, and looking it through now 
recalls stories of assassination, war and tragedies in striking 
contrast to their happy visits at different times to her late 
Majesty, when these royal personages were fortunately blinded 
to their future fates. 

St. George's Chapel at Windsor has a roof of such unsur- 
passed stone fan tracery that even were the chapel empty of 
all else, one should go far to see it. Besides the royal tombs 
of Henry VI., Henry VIII., and Jean Seymour, and that of 
Charles I., St. George's is famous as the place of installation 
of the Knights of the Garter, the most ancient and honorable 
order of chivalry in England. It was formed in King Edward 
III.'s time with but twelve members and the sovereign, but 
has steadily grown since, and now one sees all great personages 




QUERN'S PRIVATE DINING-ROOM, KNOWN AS 
THE OAK ROOM 



288 RAMBLES ABROAD 

whom England wishes to honor, wearing its broad blue ribbon 
across the shoulder. At St. George's many great events have 
been celebrated, including King Edward's wedding and her 
late Majesty's owfi impressive funeral in 1901. 

The Albert Chapel, rich in mosaics, porphyry, alabaster, 
lapis lazuli, and malachite, and the great marble statues of 
Life and Death, contains the tombs of the Duke of Albany, and 
of the King's son, the Duke of Clarence, who died a few 
years ago. From its name many expect to see, in this Albert 
Chapel, the grave of the Prince Consort, but this was only 
intended to be a memorial to him, for Queen Victoria and 
Prince Albert now lie side by side at Frogmore, a mile beyond 
Windsor, thus united during life with a never-ending devotion, 
in death they are no longer separated. 



